The Fort (Chris Powers)

Micah is the President and Founder of Anchor Investments, which is on a mission to Build America’s Most Generous Real Estate Company. Micah focuses on identifying real estate investment opportunities for Anchor, raising capital, and leading the team.  He is also the founder of Mission Hotels, the only hotel brand in America that gives away the majority of its profits to support underserved communities.  On this episode, Chris and Micah discuss:  Growing up in urban Memphis The need for great schools & father figures The state of retail real estate Building Anchor How to give away money Links: Anchor Investments Micah on LinkedIn Lloyd Reeb on The Fort Die with Zero by Bill Perkins Halftime by Bob Buford We'd appreciate you filling out our audience survey, so we can continuously work on providing relevant content to our listeners.  https://www.thefortpod.com/survey Topics (00:00:00) - Intro (00:03:07) - Growing up on the wrong side of Memphis (00:07:40) - The working poor (00:09:58) - The importance of good schools (00:17:05) - Micah’s early career (00:19:28) - Experiences in the GFC (00:23:27) - Micah’s job today (00:28:36) - Thoughts on the retail market (00:29:39) - Developing a trait of generosity (00:33:30) - Building America’s Most Generous Real Estate Company (00:41:15) - Buying churches and converting them to hotels (00:47:51) - How to give away money (00:54:06) - What does the inner-city need to change? (00:57:03) - Charter Schools (00:58:20) - How to get people involved in giving (01:02:22) - Raising grounded children   (01:08:55) - Why people with money don’t give (01:12:53) - How to know where to give (01:17:22) - Thoughts on giving across the street vs. across the ocean (01:18:50) - The Halftime Institute (01:24:38) - Final thoughts Support our Sponsors Better Pitch: https://bit.ly/42d9L0I Fort Capital: https://bit.ly/FortCapital Follow Fort Capital on LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/company/fort-capital/ Chris on Social Media: Twitter: https://bit.ly/3BYIjcH LinkedIn: https://bit.ly/45gIkFd   Watch The Fort on YouTube: https://bit.ly/3oynxNX Visit our website: https://bit.ly/43SOvys Leave a review on Apple: https://bit.ly/45crFD0 Leave a review on Spotify: https://bit.ly/3Krl9jO  The FORT is produced by Johnny Podcasts

Larry Brogdon is a geologist and Partner with Four Sevens Oil Company with over 40 years of experience in the oil and gas industry. He has been involved in developing several major oil and gas plays, including the Barnett Shale.  We discuss: - The early days of the Barnett Shale - The impact of horizontal oil wells - The role of natural gas in the world and predictions for the energy industry We'd appreciate you filling out our audience survey, so we can continuously work on providing relevant content to our listeners.  https://www.thefortpod.com/survey Support our Sponsors: Better Pitch: https://bit.ly/42d9L0I Topics: (00:00:00) - Intro (00:02:07) - Larry’s entry into the oil business (00:05:00) - George Mitchell & the Barnett shale (00:19:07) - Capitalizing on the success of horizontal wells (00:26:32) - Building and exiting the business (00:33:21) - The role of natural gas in the world (00:39:55) - Larry’s investing thesis (00:45:40) - 10-year predictions Chris on Social Media: X: https://bit.ly/3BYIjcH LinkedIn: https://bit.ly/45gIkFd   Watch The Fort on YouTube: https://bit.ly/3oynxNX Visit our website: https://bit.ly/43SOvys Leave a review on Apple: https://bit.ly/45crFD0 Leave a review on Spotify: https://bit.ly/3Krl9jO  The FORT is produced by Johnny Podcasts

Soon after joining Higginbotham as a customer service representative in the employee benefits department, TJ Hutchings set a goal to become a managing director within five years, which he accomplished by the end of 2018. Hutchings has maintained a 95%-plus customer retention rate by tirelessly searching for savings solutions for his clients and fostering community relationships to bring them closer to resources that can improve their situation. On this episode, TJ discusses how his Cancer diagnosis led him to this current career path before deep diving into how employers should be approaching health insurance for their teams. He breaks down basic terminologies and best practices for small to medium-sized companies and how employees can make the most of their health plans. Chris and TJ also discuss the concept of businesses having to provide insurance, pre-existing conditions, the rising costs of care, and more. Enjoy! Follow Chris on Twitter: www.Twitter.com/FortWorthChris Learn more about Chris Powers and Fort Capital: www.FortCapitalLP.com Follow Chris on LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/in/chrispowersjr/ (02:46) - TJ’s Background and Early Career (05:42) - What are folks left with when they are continually rejected in their appeals for health coverage? (06:32) - TJ’s Journey of Working with Higginbotham  (08:15) - How do you think about what you do for a living? (10:12) - What are the things that SMB owners should be asking when they’re at the table with you? (10:54) - Defining Markets (11:51) - Who sets rates? (13:55) - What variables can employers negotiate to get better rates or do privately do improve their individual standing? Healthcare Bluebook (16:58) - At what size do you start thinking about self-insuring? (20:06) - Individual Health vs. the Group Plan (20:35) - Why is insurance state-by-state? (21:35) - What are the types of plans and what do they mean? (25:12) - Basic Terminologies Co-Pay Deductible  Premium (26:19) - Why is it on your employer to cover health insurance in America? (27:35) - How do you make the decision on which bucket your company fits in? (31:22) - Dual-Options Plans for Employees (32:17) - Should most employers have their agent on site for open enrollment day? (34:08) - What happens when there are folks on the team with pre-existing conditions? (36:19) - What happens after folks and their companies have picked their policies? (38:39) - Is there any risk the employer takes on selecting a plan? (38:51) - Who are the main companies in this space? (41:00) - How far in advance should employers start thinking about next year’s plan? (42:48) - How do you navigate the constantly changing regulations as politicians revolve in and out of office to change things? (45:21) - Obamacare (46:00) - If I don’t have health insurance, and something terrible happens, who’s paying those bills? (47:06) - Why are health costs continuing to increase? Dr. Bricker Videos - AHealthcareZ (49:40) - Price Differences Between US and Canada for Pharmaceutical Drugs (50:42) - Is it a growing industry to have a company that fights the hospital billing on your behalf? (52:39) - Does the misfortune of a few impact the premium of the whole group?  (54:47) - What questions should companies be asking different agents? (57:30) - What does your dream client look like? (1:00:53) - Is there any technology that could disrupt this industry? (1:03:05) - Are there political issues in healthcare that keep you up at night? (1:07:07) - Was there something that happened in your childhood that shaped your path in life? (1:09:08) - Do you have a morning routine? (1:11:08) - What is the best advice you’ve been given & What advice would you give to someone starting in the industry? (1:12:56) - How can people find you? LinkedIn Instagram Twitter Website The FORT is produced by Straight Up Podcasts

Kendal Harazny is a Principal and Co-founder of Wexford Developments, a real estate development, investment, and management company. Wexford has completed over $500 million of development, currently has $500 million in assets under management, and has an upcoming development pipeline exceeding $400 million, including over 900 units breaking ground in 2022. Focused on Western Canada and the Southwestern United States, Wexford is primarily involved in urban mixed-use residential projects but has also developed substantial land, retail and industrial assets. In this episode, Kendal and Chris discuss an array of topics such as the differences in Canada vs. the United States and what it takes to develop a generational asset. They also chat about how Wexford identifies and selects projects to work on and why design matters and how to communicate to neighboring stakeholders and much more!  Follow Chris on Twitter: www.Twitter.com/FortWorthChris Learn more about Chris Powers and Fort Capital: www.FortCapitalLP.com Follow Chris on LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/in/chrispowersjr/ Follow Fort Capital on LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/company/fort-capital/ Watch this Episode on YouTube: https://youtu.be/DN61kAEFq-4 (02:08) - Kendal’s Background and Career (04:10) - What are the top things that create bad deals in development? (06:10) - More on Kendal’s Background (10:44) - What are the biggest differences between Canada and the United States? (13:02) - Getting Project Approval in Canada (15:25) - How do you handle emotional opinions from the community when doing development? (17:53) - Incorporating Feedback From the Community & Rezoning (19:48) - How long is the process from submitting to the city for approval? (21:45) - Is everything you do for rent or do you have for sale opportunities? (22:13) - How do you capitalize deals and think about debt? (24:00) - Why don’t you bring US debt into Canada? (25:07) - Cultural Differences in Lending (26:54) - How is recourse structured? (28:28) - How do you think about parking for your projects? (31:35) - Thoughts on Building EV Stalls (33:49) - Is a lot of your equity coming from Canada or is it global? (34:50) - The Toronto & Vancouver Real Estate Market (36:52) - What experiences are you having as it relates to building and the supply issues we’re seeing? (40:27) - What do you look for in markets before entering? (43:16) - How do you know you’re going into the best location? (45:07) - How do you think about hiring architects? (48:49) - The Importance of the Cohesion Between Architects, GC’s and Engineers (52:02) - What matters to you when picking General Contractors? (54:39) - What is ‘crystalizing the promote?’ (1:00:08) - Kendal’s Hunt for an Acquisition Manager The Fort is produced by Johnny Peterson & Straight Up Podcasts

John joined Airshare as CFO in 2016 and became President and CEO in March 2018. He originally fine-tuned his consultative skills and financial acumen working in progressively higher roles at State Street, Accenture, and KPMG. On this episode, Chris and John discuss the industry of private aviation, misnomers about flying private, aviation throughout COVID, what the next ten years might look like, technology making aviation more affordable and safer, and John's career path. Enjoy! Follow Chris on Twitter: www.Twitter.com/FortWorthChris Learn more about Chris Powers & Fort Capital: www.FortCapitalLP.com (02:07) - John's Story (05:58) - What was your life like in the consulting role? (06:28) - Why do you have a passion for the organizational and operational side of business? (07:07) - What was the series of events that landed you in the CEO role? (07:51) - How would you describe AirShare? (10:07) - What are the advantages of a JetCard? (11:03) - What are some advantages to fractional ownership? (12:08) - What are the ongoing costs once you’ve bought a fraction of a plane? (14:50) - How did you choose the Phenom 100 & 300? (16:19) - Do pilot licenses allow you to fly multiple types of planes? (16:50) - How many jets do you have? (17:09) - Do plane owners that allow you to manage their aircraft let you lease it out to shareowners? (17:36) - If I owned 100% of a Phenom 300, what does it cost to maintain it per year? (18:18) - What are the most common maintenance issues aircraft owners will run into? (19:14) - How are you set up around the country with where you can land and store planes? (20:04) - How many customers do you have?  (20:57) - What do you tell someone not located in density that wants to be a customer? (21:19) - What’s the market like for a private pilot? What are their rates? (21:46) - Where are your pilots coming from? (22:34) - When is a good time for a business owner to consider private aviation? (26:33) - How long do you keep a plane in the fleet? (27:13) - Who’s the typical buyer on the way out? (28:05) - What’s your ownership structure at AirShare? (28:48) - How do you think about growth? (30:59) - Do you host customer events? (31:57) - Having Patrick Mahomes as a Client (32:49) - Can you charter something by the day for a larger group? (33:53) - What's the difference between AirShare and Warren Buffet’s NetJets? (36:04) - What were the first few months of COVID like for the private air industry? (38:02) - Is there a permanent shift of people flying private? (40:03) - Are there states that are harder to fly into than others right now? (40:33) - Is there anything you’re watching for economically that will give people hope in the coming months? (41:57) - Is a COVID vaccine the key to opening everything back up? (48:24) - What do you think the industry will look like in 10 years? (50:34) - What do your gas contracts look like? (51:00) - How much fuel do you buy per year? (51:24) - Are there any other risks you look out for besides a crash? (1:02:54) - Do you plan on being part of the consolidation of the industry? (1:05:18) - How does a Maintenance Contract work? (1:05:55) - Reading Habits (1:06:35) - If you could put anything up on a billboard, what would you say? Contact John at www.flyairshare.com

Isaac French designed and built Live Oak Lake, a breathtaking 7-unit nature-immersive retreat located just outside Waco, Texas. In its first year, the property grossed $1 million, with a net profit of $550,000. Thanks to his cultivation of the brand’s social media following of 150K, over 80% of all bookings are direct. Isaac thrives on continuously expanding his repertoire of skills and sharing candidly from his experiences. On this episode, Chris and Isaac discuss: The process of designing and building Live Oak Lake Experiential hospitality Automated cost savings & touchpoint details Building out a social media engine & course We'd appreciate you filling out our audience survey, so we can continuously work on providing relevant content to our listeners.  https://www.thefortpod.com/survey Links: Isaac on Twitter Isaac's LinkTree to course, newsletter & consulting Live Oak Lake DallasSites101 Topics: (00:02:21) Isaac’s background & career (00:07:24) The love of design (00:09:55) The experiential hospitality model (00:13:32) The process of building Live Oak Lake (00:27:44) What does experiential hospitality mean? (00:32:17) Automated cost savings & touchpoint details that matter (00:41:56) What has changed about the property since you opened? (00:46:11) Can you fake an end-to-end experiential property? (00:48:12) How do you make sure labor is in check in a rural area? (00:53:28) Is there a number of units where you lose out on the magic? (01:00:25) Building a social media engine & course Support our Sponsors Better Pitch: https://bit.ly/42d9L0I Fort Capital: https://bit.ly/FortCapital Follow Fort Capital on LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/company/fort-capital/ Chris on Social Media: Twitter: https://bit.ly/3BYIjcH LinkedIn: https://bit.ly/45gIkFd   Watch The Fort on YouTube: https://bit.ly/3oynxNX Visit our website: https://bit.ly/43SOvys Leave a review on Apple: https://bit.ly/45crFD0 Leave a review on Spotify: https://bit.ly/3Krl9jO  The FORT is produced by Johnny Podcasts

Brady Wood is an influencer and innovator in the entertainment concept and real estate development space. He has the proven ability to “see the unseen” which allows him to navigate the complex and nuanced art of concept creation. On this episode, Brady and Chris discuss his journey from buying bars and restaurants in Dallas to founding Woodhouse and developing major mixed-use projects such as The Star in Frisco facility utilized by The Dallas Cowboys. They also discuss the private membership club industry and how they were able to navigate the pandemic with projects like Park House in Highland Park. Finally, Brady gives his thoughts on concepts like Ghost-kitchens and how to better the relationship between restaurants and leasers to keep these small businesses alive. Enjoy!  Follow Chris on Twitter: www.Twitter.com/FortWorthChris Learn more about Chris Powers and Fort Capital: www.FortCapitalLP.com Follow Chris on LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/in/chrispowersjr/ (02:47) - Brady’s Story Owning His First Businesses and Buying Bars in Dallas (07:53) - Did you end up selling all of those businesses or did you hold onto them? (09:08) - What was the next step for you after owning bars and restaurants in Dallas? (13:12) - Can you describe what you do today at Woodhouse? (16:24) -  Working with Jerry Jones to Develop The Star Facility in Frisco (18:58) - What did the developers do right when building The Star that others should think about in terms of bringing someone like you into the fold of a project? (23:13) - When someone like The Cowboys built out The Star, is WoodHouse putting together a plan to present to the family and developing everything once it’s approved? (25:14) - How do you come up with these concepts and gain inspiration? (27:32) - Why are great restaurants great? Why do some fail? (34:17) - Can you describe what a partnership deal between the leaser and the restauranteur looks like? (37:11) - Why aren’t more folks pursuing these types of partnerships? (39:24) - Assuming the partnership is in place, why do restaurants still fail or succeed from an operating standpoint? (43:08) - How did you develop and execute the Park House Club concept in Highland Park, Dallas? (46:39) - How do you deal with such a long waiting list? (4,100 Currently) (47:59) - Is there something unique that the space has been used for that you never expected? (50:07) - Gateway and First-Tier Cities (53:51) - What is the future of private paid membership clubs? (55:28) - Should more restaurants think about the Ghost-Kitchen model? (57:17) - What are some things we should expect in the next year and over the next 5 for hospitality? (1:01:28) - When can we expect music festivals to come back? (1:02:40) - What are the economics of a music festival? (1:04:17) - Do you act as the consultant to the festival or do you own the ones you’re involved with? (1:04:47) - Could the private membership clubs not exist in small marker cities or do they require a certain demographic? Common House Club in Charlottesville (1:06:39) - Do you have a childhood experience that shaped the trajectory of your life? (1:09:30) - What’s one thing you believe that most people don’t believe? (1:10:38) - What’s the best book you’ve ever read? Richard Branson Books Elon Musk’s Biography Empire of the Summer Moon (1:11:43) - If you owned a billboard that you could put anything on, what would it say? (1:12:14) - What’s the best way for people to get in touch with you? Brady on LinkedIn Woodhouse Online

On this episode, Chris breaks down how Fort Capital transacts and acquires properties. He starts with the company's emphasis on how important their process has been to their success, who's involved, and what type of deals they pursue. Then he breaks down each step of the acquisition from the time a deal is brought to their attention to closing. Enjoy! Follow Chris on Twitter: www.Twitter.com/FortWorthChris Learn more about Chris Powers and Fort Capital: www.FortCapitalLP.com Follow Chris on LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/in/chrispowersjr/ Follow Fort Capital on LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/company/fort-capital/ (01:12) - How You Acquire Properties Matters (03:03) - Who’s involved in the process? (03:31) - Pursuing Off-Market & Light-Market Deals Instead of Auctions (04:53) - Acquisition Consultants Leads.FortCapitallp.com (06:36) - Running a ‘Quick Check’ (08:00) - Deal Pipeline Folders (08:45) - Weekly Deal Meetings  (12:13) - Investment Committee Meetings (12:53) - Drafting an LOI (13:45) - Project Kick-Off (15:19) - PSA (Purchase Sale Agreement) (15:54) - Writing an Investment Memo Listen to FORT #81 for more details on Investment Memos Fort Capital Free Resources (18:33) - Raising Capital  (21:07) - Bank Financing  (22:50) - Getting Entities Developed (Bank Accounts, Titling, Administrative Tasks) (23:19) - Property Management Due Diligence Listen to FORT #97 for more detail on Due Diligence (23:48) - Huddle-Up Before Going Hard on Our Money (24:38) - Wrap Up  The FORT is produced by Straight Up Podcasts

Moses Kagan is the Co-Founder and Head of Adaptive Realty, a Los Angeles-based development and property management group. Since 2018, Moses has overseen the repositioning of 80 properties in Los Angeles and grown Adaptive from $0 to $110M of property under management. He and Chris discuss finding LP's that align with your vision, Adaptive's business model with cash-only financing, building a successful property management company, and more. Enjoy! For more information on Chris Powers and Fort Capital, visit www.fortcapitallp.com. Follow Chris on Twitter! @fortworthchris 02:35 — Background on Moses and Adaptive Realty 07:25 — How do you find LP’s that really enjoy your idea of holding onto assets vs. worrying about IRR? 11:18 — Do you think your model is scalable? Do you want to scale? 15:27 — Are you able to sell? What is the agreement like with your LP’s? 17:44 — Why do you capitalize everything with all equity up-front? 23:15 — Using Fanny / Freddy to Re-Finance a Loan 26:24 — What does your perfect deal look like? How do you find those deals? 36:16 — What makes a successful Property Management business? 41:51 — Are you keeping a reserve line item for cap-ex to build up over time? 45:39 — Where are mistakes made in the multifamily value-add space? 49:25 — What is your favorite book? 51:55 — What advice would you give your 21-year-old self? 55:27 — What is your 10-year prediction for the future? The FORT with Chris Powers is produced by Straight Up Podcasts.

Principal & Founder Riaz Taplin has been thinking about workforce housing for most of his professional life. Growing up in a real estate family, Riaz detoured early in his career from the family business to develop his own style by founding a design/build firm and developing over 50 ultra-luxury residences in the Bay Area. In successive projects and ventures, Riaz explored co-living, adaptive reuse micro-units, student housing, and traditional ground-up construction – all of which led to the firm’s custom workforce housing solution – the Micro-Living Studio.  Riaz leads Riaz Capital, a vertically integrated workforce housing developer and institutional-grade sponsor with a core team of over fifty professionals managing a portfolio of over 1,300 units, and with over 1,000 residences in the pipeline.  On this episode, Chris and Riaz discuss developing amazing projects in 30 months or less, how Riaz Capital builds units that are 28% more affordable than the competition. They deep dive on why design matters and why the Bay Area matters and will be a strong market for decades to come. Enjoy!  Follow Chris on Twitter: www.Twitter.com/FortWorthChris Learn more about Chris Powers and Fort Capital: www.FortCapitalLP.com Follow Chris on LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/in/chrispowersjr/ Follow Fort Capital on LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/company/fort-capital/ Links: Riaz on LinkedIn Riaz Capital  Topics: (04:10) - Riaz’s Background and Career (12:24) - What is Microliving? (15:12) - How are you able to build these developments in 30 months when other deals take 7 years? (21:22) - Do you self-perform GC? (24:24) - How does zoning work in your market? (27:20) - Affordability Without Public Subsidizing (28:19) - Riaz’s ‘Simple Build’ Model (32:09) - Family households have dropped 69% to 29%, what does that mean for you? (35:54) - What do these units look like inside? (40:34) - Do tenants have to put a deposit down since the unit is pre-furnished? (41:34) - How do people getting into the industry get furniture designed for units? (42:43) - How do you design the layout of your units? (46:35) - Are we headed into a world where everything is smaller and more efficient? (50:39) - What are most people still getting wrong with apartment development? (53:28) - What would you change immediately that would make housing more attainable at scale? (56:10) - Why is the Bay Area still really important at a time when people are trying to write it off? (1:00:52) - Raising Capital, Funds & Opportunity Zones (1:11:33) - Wrap Up The Fort is produced by Johnny Peterson & Straight Up Podcasts

Abraham Shafi is the Co-Founder and CEO of www.IRL.com, one of the fastest growing social networking apps in the world.  IRL was founded along with Henry Khachatryan and PayPal’s first board member Scott Banister. "IRL: Do More Together" has raised a total of $11 million in funding, with five investors backing up the company. The company's goal is to provide a place to discover events and allow users to do those things with other people. On this episode, Chris and Abraham discuss his rise in the tech world after dropping out of college, his previous venture being acquired by Dice, organic growth best practices, working with venture capitalists, how COVID has impacted IRL, and much more. Enjoy!  Follow Chris on Twitter: www.Twitter.com/FortWorthChris Learn more about Chris Powers & Fort Capital: www.FortCapitalLP.com (02:19) - Abe’s Story (08:38) - When did you formulate the plan for IRL and take the leap? (12:21) - Did you raise VC for IRL? Are you a technical or non-technical founder? (14:18) - What impact did your co-founder Scott have on the company? (17:04) - Are there best practices that come to mind when talking about organic growth? (19:41) - What is IRL? How would you describe it to someone about to download the app? (21:44) - How do you publish events on the platform? (25:05) - How would this be different from something like Twitch? (26:03) - Is there anything that stands out about how people have used the product differently than you imagined? (27:37) - How has COVID impacted you & IRL either positively or negatively? (30:40) - Is there data showing pent-up demand for people to get back into the world? (32:28) - How does your college ambassador program work? Why did you implement it? (36:39) - Is there a unique way someone has used the platform during COVID that was really inspiring? (37:37) - What was your experience raising a series-B during 2020 given the unique challenges of the year? (38:42) - What makes a great Venture Capitalist? (40:59) - How is leadership considered when different VC’s lead different rounds of funding?  (43:00) - What would you tell first-time founders as they deliberate who to approach for raising funds? (44:40) - What is your opinion on the state of social media? How do you think we can get back to it being a positive thing? (52:07) - Do you have a childhood experience that’s shaped who you are today? (57:26) - Do you have a morning routine? (58:16) - Are some of San Francisco’s brightest days ahead? (1:00:51) - What’s the best advice you’ve ever received? (1:03:16) - What's the best book you’ve ever read? The Art of Power by Thich Nhat Hanh (1:06:54) - If you had a billboard that you could put anything on, what would it say? (1:09:12) - How can people find you? www.IRL.com www.Twitter.com/Abrashafi The FORT with Chris Powers is produced by Straight Up Podcasts

Ian is the founder of MicroCapClub.com, a global community of microcap investors. He is also the founder of Intelligent Fanatics Capital Management LLC, where his team works with private wealth clients to help give them exposure to the smallest public companies in the world. We discuss: The world of microcap investing Why the greatest investors started in microcap Building MicroCap Club Ian’s process for investing in a company We'd appreciate you filling out our audience survey, so we can continuously work on providing relevant content to our listeners.  https://www.thefortpod.com/survey Links Ian on X MicroCapClub.com Topics (00:00:00) - Intro (00:02:06) - Growing up near the Amish (00:06:31) - Getting into Microcap investing (00:13:42) - Why most microcaps lose money (00:16:02) - The cost of being a public company (00:17:57) - Why the greatest investors started in microcap (00:21:22) - Experiences during the GFC (00:26:29) - Starting MicroCapClub (00:32:20) - Ian’s process (00:49:30) - Do you expect stock movement when you buy into a company? (00:54:40) - Due diligence  (01:02:01) - Finding undervalue (01:03:32) - Emotion in Investing (01:07:05) - Thoughts on the market (01:12:02) - What size does a microcap end? (01:14:06) - What are the best sources of information for mIcrocap? Support our Sponsors Fort Capital: https://bit.ly/FortCapital Follow Fort Capital on LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/company/fort-capital/ Chris on Social Media: X: https://bit.ly/3BYIjcH LinkedIn: https://bit.ly/45gIkFd   Watch The Fort on YouTube: https://bit.ly/3oynxNX Visit our website: https://bit.ly/43SOvys Leave a review on Apple: https://bit.ly/45crFD0 Leave a review on Spotify: https://bit.ly/3Krl9jO  The FORT is produced by Johnny Podcasts

Scott O’Neill is a Principal and Co-Founder of FSO Capital Partners. Scott O’Neill specializes in the acquisition, financing, syndication, and development of multifamily properties throughout Arizona. Since entering the Arizona market, Scott has been directly involved as a principal in the acquisition, development, or disposition of over $15,000,000 of multifamily assets. On this episode, Scott and Chris discuss his career in brokerage before pivoting into principal. Scott details his 100 cold calls per-day strategy to become successful right out of the gate as a broker, the founding of FSO Capital Partners, and his Ice Hockey Career. They also break down what the process of a multifamily deal looks like from acquisition to rehab and management. Scott also gives advice to brokers who are looking to move to the principal side of real estate. Enjoy! Follow Chris on Twitter: www.Twitter.com/FortWorthChris Learn more about Chris Powers and Fort Capital: www.FortCapitalLP.com Follow Chris on LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/in/chrispowersjr/  Follow Scott on Twitter: www.Twitter.com/Scottyo21 (02:12) - Scott’s Background (06:07) - How did your father’s experience in the ’08 crisis impact you? (08:41) - Scott’s Ice Hockey Career (10:23) - How did you become successful right out of the gate as a broker? (14:31) - Did you come up with this 100 per-day cold call strategy? (17:24) - How do you think the pitch has changed from 2010 to 2021 in a market that’s clearly much better? (19:12) - Is there a reason you were focused on small multi-family deals vs. “Elephant” deals? (20:25) - What’s an All-Inclusive Trust Deed? (21:16) - Carnivores, Omnivores & Herbivores (23:15) - Scott Rounding Out His Broker Journey (23:55) - Was there a deal in brokerage that you’ll never forget? (24:50) - Did you ever run into Moses Kagan? (25:46) - What is the usual ambition toward investing when it came to working with doctors and dentists? (29:20) - What does FSO Capital Partners do? (31:41) - What do you do and what do your partners do? (33:10) - How do you find most of your deals? (34:54) - What are you looking for to decide whether a deal is worth spending your time on? (36:55) - How do you create value for a deal? LIHTC - Low Income Housing Tax Credit (39:46) - The Seller Perspective  (40:36) - How do you get really comfortable with getting restrictions removed on a deed? (42:34) - Why wouldn’t the seller go through this process themselves? (43:39) - What are you doing with all the money you put into a property? (45:46) - How long is the rehab taking? (46:55) - How do you go about re-branding a property?  (47:48) - Utilizing Bridge Debts and Raising Rents  (49:54) - What was the interest rate on this deal and were there any covenants? (51:14) - When do you start engaging with agencies to get a re-finance loan and how long does it take to get the loan? (53:22) - How do you typically structure your deals? (54:22) - 3rd-Party vs. Self-Management (55:37) - How do you select management companies? (56:24) - How do you think about growth going forward  (57:34) - How are you set up to hold your 3rd-party property management partners accountable? (1:01:17) - What excites you about the Phoenix & Arizona market? (1:04:42) - What advice would you give to brokers who want to get in on the principal side? (1:05:49) - Book Recommendations Am I Being Too Subtle? - Sam Zell Principals - Ray Dalio Rich Dad Poor Dad - Robert Kiyosaki Gary Keller - Millionaire Real Estate Agent The One Thing - Gary Keller (1:06:27) - What’s the best way for people to find you? Twitter - www.Twitter.com/Scottyo21 Email -  Scott@fsocap.com Phone - 310 365 4861 The FORT with Chris Powers is produced by Straight Up Podcasts

Chris chats with Keith Wasserman, Founder and CEO of Gelt Inc, one of the fastest growing real estate companies in the country. Gelt focuses on purchasing multi family communities, storage facilities and RV parks. You can connect with Keith by email at Keith@geltinc.com or @keith_wasserman on Twitter. Connect with The FORT by emailing us at thefortpodcast@gmail.com  For more information on Chris Powers and Fort Capital, visit www.fortcapitallp.com Follow Chris on twitter! @fortworthchris 1:15 - How was Gelt started? 9:50 - Investing in the person vs. the project 11:23 - Why multi family and mobile home parks as a business model? 15:23 - How do you think about the future of renting and ownership? 17:20 - The biggest changes in tech and living we see for the future 23:20 - other asset classes Gelt focuses on 31:15 - How do you go about entering new markets? 34:00 - building relationships  36:54- YPO global real estate fair 38:00 - the process of finding investors/securing deals 45:50 - how has your job changes as the company grows? 50:38 - Where will the company be at the “end”? 53:05 - Keith’s thoughts on growth 54:14 - What does Gelt stand for, charity, Chris and Keith’s thoughts on the future of eduction 1:02:25 - advice for success

Bobby has been involved in startup companies for nearly his entire career. He left graduate school to start his previous company, Cross Properties, with 3 other partners in the basement of a seminary in 2011. He's worn every hat in real estate from finance, capital markets, fundraising, leasing, late-night maintenance, and semi-professional architect. At Cross, he was the Partner in charge of the Development and Design team and was responsible for every project from an empty lot to stabilized building. In 2019, he left day to day operations at Cross to co-found Tailorbird, a construction technology company, and Form Developers. On this episode, Chris and Bobby break down the science behind floor plans and how Bobby looks at apartment development as products that need perfecting. They discuss value add, efficiencies in the industry, the concept of pre-furnished apartments, how Bobby has built his persona as a floor plan consultant on Twitter and much more. Enjoy! Watch this episode on YouTube: https://youtu.be/Hdt2wr5a_YM Follow Chris on Twitter: www.Twitter.com/FortWorthChris Learn more about Chris Powers and Fort Capital: www.FortCapitalLP.com Follow Chris on LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/in/chrispowersjr/ Follow Fort Capital on LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/company/fort-capital/ (2:11) - Bobby’s Career in Real Estate (4:22) - How did you make floor plans your niche? (8:03) - What’s the main reason floor plans are afterthoughts in the development process? (10:02) - What would make a great 650 Sqft unit and what makes a terrible one? (14:25) - Are there parts of a floor plan that adds value every time and parts that don’t in the data you’ve seen? (17:48) - What would a second use for a bedroom be? (18:56) - Thoughts on Balconies (19:48) - What makes 2br's more or less valuable? (21:52) - How do preferences change between demos of empty-nesters and millennials? (22:57) - Bobby’s disdain for Value add (26:07) - Creating metrics that people aren’t measuring right now (28:55) - Are you met with resistance when trying to present this way of thinking? (32:32) - What would be the opposite view of yours? (32:59) - “Apartments should be designed furnished” (41:31) - Is there any data to suggest people would rent longer in a pre-furnished scenario (41:59) - What’s your favorite feature in a small apartment? (42:38) - Thoughts on efficiencies in apartments (44:58) - Thoughts on Micro-units (46:56) - What are key things you think about when you take over an existing structure? (50:35) - Are there resources developers can utilize early on when it comes to easily design floor plans? (55:37) - What is a complex deal and what have you done to gravitate towards them? (58:30) - What are common things that the average developer overlooks when reviewing rules & regulations and dealing with surrounding communities? (1:01:39) - What do the majority of your reuse deals look like? (1:06:05) - Is it fair to say there’s more adaptive reuse projects in the Northeast? (1:08:12) - Does anything come to mind of things you’ve been able to pull off that most developers wouldn’t have seen? (1:13:52) - When you enter a new area, do you bring on local consultants to help you create relationships in the city or do you have a specific approach? (1:19:25) - Do you have a favorite floor plan you’ve ever seen? And what’s the worst one you’ve ever seen? (1:23:25) - What’s your favorite development? (1:24:33) - How can people find you Twitter: www.Twitter.com/BobbyFijan Email Bfijan@formdevelopers.com The FORT is produced by Johnny Peterson & Straight Up Podcasts     

Kevin Lavelle is the CEO & Cofounder of Harbor. He’s also the Founder and Chairman of the Board at Mizzen+Main, where he invented the world’s first performance fabric dress shirt, ultimately driving it to hundreds of millions of dollars in sales. He successfully raised a growth round from L Catterton and established partnerships with athletes like Phil Mickelson, JJ Watt, and dozens of others. Today, Mizzen+Main has more than ten of its own stores with 1,000 retailers also carrying its products. We discuss: - Starting and growing Mizzen+Main - The intricacies of celebrity-equity deals - The inspiration for founding Harbor - The realities of building physical products vs. software - Stories with Phil Mickelson and J.J. Watt We'd appreciate you filling out our audience survey, so we can continuously work on providing relevant content to our listeners.  https://www.thefortpod.com/survey Links: Mizzen+Main - https://www.mizzenandmain.com/ Harbor - https://harbor.co/ Kevin on X - https://x.com/kevinslavelle The Phil Mickelson Commercial - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=45xF1C76I88 Support our Sponsors: BetterPitch: https://bit.ly/42d9L0I Fort: https://bit.ly/FortCompanies Follow Fort on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/fort-companies/ Topics: (00:00:00) - Intro (00:03:49) - Kevin’s early career and inspiration to found Mizzen+Main (00:07:25) - Building the prototype (00:11:38) - The early days of building the brand (00:15:16) - The impact of sponsoring the Tim Ferriss Podcast (x) (00:21:35) - Choosing the name “Mizzen+Main” (00:23:50) - Inventory Management  (00:26:55) - Starting today, what would be your hiring order? (00:28:32) - Celebrity partnership stories: J.J. Watt & Phil Mickelson (00:48:17) - The inspiration for founding Harbor (01:03:17) - Bringing on a Co-Founder and building hardware (01:17:19) - Marketing approaches (01:14:56) - How celebrity equity deals work Chris on Social Media: The Fort Podcast on Twitter/X: https://x.com/theFORTpodcast Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/thefortpodcast LinkedIn: https://bit.ly/45gIkFd   Watch The Fort on YouTube: https://bit.ly/3oynxNX Visit our website: https://bit.ly/43SOvys Leave a review on Apple: https://bit.ly/45crFD0 Leave a review on Spotify: https://bit.ly/3Krl9jO  The FORT is produced by Johnny Podcasts

As President and Chief Operating Officer of Vari, Jeff oversees corporate strategy and has led the charge for the development of VariSpace, the company’s new commercial real estate venture. Jeff has 38 years of corporate leadership and board experience, spanning nine industries. His “people first” approach to operational models was born working for Roger Staubach and developed over 12 years working at Southwest Airlines. He began his culture tutelage at Southwest under Colleen Barrett, President Emeritus, and then spent another eight years fine-tuning people-centric strategies for the company’s Chairman and CEO Gary Kelly. On this episode, Jeff dives deep into the concept of Servant Leadership and how it played a critical role in his corporate career. He also discusses his learnings from working under several incredible CEOs, why leaders need to be 'available', his work with Vari, advice for fathers, and more. Enjoy! Watch this episode on YouTube: https://youtu.be/-ukCn1_iymI Follow Chris on Twitter: www.Twitter.com/FortWorthChris Learn more about Chris Powers and Fort Capital: www.FortCapitalLP.com Follow Chris on LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/in/chrispowersjr/ Follow Fort Capital on LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/company/fort-capital/ (03:02) - Jeff’s Background and Career (12:15) - What does ‘Servant Leadership’ mean to you? Halftime by Bob Buford (18:07) - Jeff’s Experience Working at Southwest Airlines (20:39) - Working with Pat Lencioni of The 5 Dysfunctions of a Team (22:26) - The Transition out of Southwest and into Vari (27:00) - Did Vari already have a Servant Leadership path in mind & what did you do to make your mark there? (31:01) - What are workspace solutions? (31:56) - How do you see the office industry going forward? (35:52) - What’s your target market tenant? (37:52) - In-Office as a Competitive Advantage (40:13) - What traits and characteristics make a great CEO? (49:30) - Great Availability Is Better Than a Great Vision  Energy Bus by Jon Gordon No Complaining Rule by Jon Gordon (52:01) - How do you convey to your employees that you’re ‘available’? The making of a Corporate Athlete - Harvard Business Review (56:01) - What are your biggest takeaways from working at Southwest? (58:15) - Why do people generally not reach their full potential? (1:00:15) - What have you enjoyed most about mentoring young people and how do you approach it? (1:06:28) - Words of Wisdom for Future Father-in-Laws (1:08:14) - Advice on Being a Good Father (1:12:46) - Advice on Having a Good Marriage (1:15:24) - Do you have a childhood experience that shaped who you are today? (1:18:26) - Is there something you believe in that most people around you don’t? (1:22:26) - Do you have a morning routine? (1:23:41) - What’s the best advice you can give young people? The FORT is produced by Johnny Peterson & Straight Up Podcasts

Cody Campbell is Co-Chief Executive Officer of Double Eagle Energy Holdings III LLC, a partnership formed with Apollo Global Management and co-founder of Double Eagle Development. Campbell began his business career as a student at Texas Tech University, where he and John Sellers founded a successful commercial real estate development firm. He graduated with honors with a Bachelor’s in finance and economics and a master’s in finance. After graduation, he played offensive guard for the Indianapolis Colts. On this episode, Chris and Cody discuss the early days of building Double Eagle, the state of oil & gas and its opportunities and challenges ahead, what things might look like under a Biden administration, how they were able to partner with Apollo, and much more. Enjoy! Follow Chris on Twitter: www.Twitter.com/FortWorthChris Learn more about Chris Powers & Fort Capital: www.FortCapitalLP.com (02:15) - Cody’s Background and Business Career to Date (11:12) - What’s an option of a lease? (13:45) - How long would you anticipate you’d have to sit on a lease before it sells? (15:57) - When did you formalize that Double Eagle would be your full-time job? (18:39) - When did you partner with Apollo? How did that relationship start? (23:31) - What was it like working with Aubrey McClendon? (25:45) - Was Double Eagle #2 similar to Double Eagle #1? (28:00) - How long did Double Eagle #2 take from start to finish? (28:50) - When were you able to get away from the scrutiny of being able to purchase deals? (29:43) - Why did you choose the Midland over the Delaware? Are there major differences between them? (31:09) - How many transactions does it take to put together 70,000 acres in the Midland? (31:55) - When you’re buying thousands of leases, how often are you committing to a lease that you know still needs some work? (33:47) - What’s the minimum amount of acreage needed to be able to drill? (35:01) - You’ve sold Double Eagle #2, so what does Double Eagle #3 look like? (37:32) - With today’s technology, how many drilling sites could you have? How much oil can you get from these 96,000 acres? (39:06) - Do you hedge your oil? Are you able to decide that or does Apollo choose? (39:42) - Do you put the hedge in before you drill a well or during? (40:29) - How big is your team now? (40:48) - How do you see where we are today vs. previous downturns? What's different this time? (41:47) - What gives people a reason to think that the industry wouldn’t exist in the future? (43:35) - What does ESG mean? (50:40) - Is there any light at the end of the tunnel to get us past this? (52:50) - Is it a good thing for oil prices to go back up? (55:25) - Do you have any comments on our relationship with other oil-producing countries? (56:03) - What happens if we don’t keep drilling? (57:36) - Have we found all the energy in the world? (58:06) - Is there any technology on the horizon to get more out of the ground? (58:51) - What are your thoughts on the new presidential administration's impact on the industry? (1:00:21) - How long is a drilling permit good for? (1:01:22) - Why is the Permian Basin the most prolific in the country? (1:02:02) - How are things valued deal to deal? (1:02:46) - What was it like to host POTUS at one of your wells? The FORT with Chris Powers is produced by Straight Up Podcasts

Chris Hoffmann currently serves as the CEO at Deutschmann Lane Holdings (DLH), which operates a family of companies including Hoffmann Brothers, Ferguson Roofing & Exteriors, Deutschmann Lane Real Estate, and HBH Investment Company. Before joining DLH, Chris served as an officer in the United States Marine Corps, leaving active duty in 2014. On this episode, we discuss: Chris' experience in the Marine Corps Taking over the family business Scaling the business Retaining and training labor The future of the trades Scaling acquired businesses We'd appreciate you filling out our audience survey, so we can continuously work on providing relevant content to our listeners.  https://www.thefortpod.com/survey Links: Chris Hoffmann on X Chris Hoffmann on LinkedIn Hoffmann Brothers Nexstar Network Tugboat Institute ServiceTitan Topics: (00:00:00) - Intro (00:03:19) - Chris’ time in the Marines (00:10:17) - Taking over the family business (00:14:41) - Scaling the business (00:19:18) - The first year in the business (00:23:04) - What metrics matter in your industry? (00:25:25) - Scaling the business after $20mm (00:27:30) - Successfully retaining labor & Hoffmann Brothers University (00:32:43) - The future of the trades (00:34:06) - Purpose-driven ownership vs. PE (00:41:09) - What questions should sellers be asking buyers? (00:45:12) - Scaling acquired businesses (00:48:01) - Call centers (00:50:34) - The future of marketing is not paid search (00:51:58) - The importance of Google reviews (00:52:29) - Is B2C harder than B2B? (00:54:13) - Recession resistance (00:57:06) - Business ideas: House managers (00:59:29) - What do the next 10 years look like for Hoffmann Brothers? (01:02:40) - The family dynamic within the business (01:06:19) - Do you have a succession plan? (01:09:03) - Mistakes made (01:12:23) - What do you see for the future of your industry? Support our Sponsors Better Pitch: https://bit.ly/42d9L0I Relay Human Cloud: https://bit.ly/3sjQcaY Fort Capital: https://bit.ly/FortCapital Follow Fort Capital on LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/company/fort-capital/ Chris on Social Media: X: https://bit.ly/3BYIjcH LinkedIn: https://bit.ly/45gIkFd   Watch The Fort on YouTube: https://bit.ly/3oynxNX Visit our website: https://bit.ly/43SOvys Leave a review on Apple: https://bit.ly/45crFD0 Leave a review on Spotify: https://bit.ly/3Krl9jO  The FORT is produced by Johnny Podcasts

We'd appreciate you filling out our audience survey, so we can continuously work on providing relevant content to our listeners. Responses received by 05/11/23 will be entered in a drawing for $500 cash. http://www.thefortpod.com/survey EPISODE #265 In today’s episode, Chris is joined by the founder of ConvertKit, Nathan Barry. Nathan’s journey to helping creators all around the world began when he was doing web design in high school before expanding into freelance blogging and content creation. But after deciding to launch a book to promote his web design service, Nathan racked up more than $19,000 in sales in just the first week, at which point he decided to go all-in on digital products and building an audience. After a friend introduced him to the power of email marketing in the content creation space, Nathan decided he wanted to start his own software business, ConvertKit, in January 2013. In today’s episode, Nathan sits down with Chris to discuss why email is still king, leveraging AI technology for content creators, and what the most successful creators are doing now. Make sure to check it out! Key Takeaways: Intro (00:00) Nathan’s backstory (02:11) Is email making a resurgence? (11:00) Does everyone need a newsletter? (17:04) The limitations of email (23:34) The dark side of newsletters (28:32) Building trust at scale (36:12) What’s ahead for creators? (46:17) Sticking to one platform (59:17) The power of AI (1:15:09) Additional Resources: 👉 See more about ConvertKit 👉 Follow Nathan on Twitter 👉 See Nathan's Books 👉 Nathan's Website 👉 Founder of Basecamp Jason Fried Keynote 👉 Sparkloop 👉 The Billion Dollar Creator by Nathan Barry 👉 Sahil Bloom on Twitter 👉 Lex Website ➡️ Learn more about Relay Human Cloud ➡️ Fort Capital: www.FortCapitalLP.com ➡️ Follow Fort Capital on LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/company/fort-capital/ ➡️ Follow Chris on Twitter: www.twitter.com/FortWorthChris ➡️ Follow Chris on LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/in/chrispowersjr/ ➡️ Sign Up for our Newsletter: https://newsletter.thefortpod.com/ ➡️ Subscribe to The FORT on YouTube -- The FORT Podcast with Chris Powers is a place where you can find meaningful conversations about entrepreneurship, real estate, investing, and more. Be sure to follow the podcast, so you never miss an episode!

In today’s episode I sit down with Michael Fishman & Michael Baum are Co-Chairs of Global RE Practice @ Greenberg Traurig, LLP - one of the world's largest real estate practices. Their practice focuses on real estate, real estate finance, private equity and real estate fund formation. Their clients include institutional investors, investment advisors, public and private real estate companies, REITs, and financial institutions. They’ve worked to form domestic and cross-border real estate funds and joint ventures and regularly represent lenders on real estate projects throughout the United States and globally. In addition, their experience with mezzanine finance, mortgage finance, lease finance, and loan defeasance transactions. They regularly advise clients with regard to the acquisition, disposition, leasing, and management of multi-family, industrial, office, retail, and hotel properties in the United States and globally. We discuss: Fishman and Baum’s cross-border PE work The future of the law profession The state of the RE market Links: Greenberg Traurig A Man in Full by Tom Wolfe Michael Fishman Michael Baum Support our Sponsor: Associated Insurance Topics: (00:00:00) - Intro (00:02:38) - The egoless partnership (00:12:51) - The process of doing business in Mexico (00:17:27) - What makes a great lawyer? (00:28:17) - Is it fair that most situations could be resolved without litigation? (00:31:46) - Making the jump to Greenberg (00:42:08) - Cowboy ethics (00:45:11) - What does your team look like today? (00:50:23) - Thoughts on AI’s impact on the legal profession (00:58:21) - Are young people wanting to be lawyers? (01:03:42) - What are you seeing in the real estate market? (01:20:43) - Data Centers (01:22:09) - Is there any Federal legislation on the horizon that listeners should be aware of? (01:26:15) - What is the biggest real estate risk people take without knowing? Chris on Social Media: X: https://bit.ly/3BYIjcH LinkedIn: https://bit.ly/45gIkFd   Watch The Fort on YouTube: https://bit.ly/3oynxNX Visit our website: https://bit.ly/43SOvys Leave a review on Apple: https://bit.ly/45crFD0 Leave a review on Spotify: https://bit.ly/3Krl9jO  The FORT is produced by Johnny Podcasts

Before founding DH Property Holdings, Dov was the Executive Vice President of Acquisitions of Asset Management at Extell Development Company. During his 13+ years at Extell, Dov negotiated and supervised the acquisitions of over $20 billion of New York real estate. Dov was directly responsible for sourcing some of the most notable transactions over the last 10 years, including The Ring Portfolio, One 57, Nordstrom Tower, and One Manhattan Square. We discuss: Stories from Dov’s career assembling iconic NYC sites Pivoting to Class B Industrial How to Negotiate in RE We'd appreciate you filling out our audience survey, so we can continuously work on providing relevant content to our listeners.  https://www.thefortpod.com/survey Topics (00:00:00) - Intro (00:01:56) - Dov’s early career  (00:05:02) - Land assemblage and zoning in NYC (00:13:12) - Tenant risks (00:16:06) - Assembling Central Park Tower site (00:27:21) - Assembling 1 Manhattan Square site (00:32:45) - The Ring portfolio (00:48:19) - Hiring Japanese actors to finalize a deal (00:56:42) - Venturing into Class B Industrial (01:13:58) - How would outsiders perform in NYC trying to assemble land? (01:15:00) - The power of negotiation Links DH Property Holdings More on Dov Hertz Dov in The Real Deal Dov in Crain's New York Business Dov's Real Estate Investment Blog Support our Sponsors Relay Human Cloud: https://bit.ly/3sjQcaY Fort: https://bit.ly/FortCompanies Follow Fort on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/fort-companies/ Chris on Social Media: X: https://bit.ly/3BYIjcH LinkedIn: https://bit.ly/45gIkFd   Watch The Fort on YouTube: https://bit.ly/3oynxNX Visit our website: https://bit.ly/43SOvys Leave a review on Apple: https://bit.ly/45crFD0 Leave a review on Spotify: https://bit.ly/3Krl9jO  The FORT is produced by Johnny Podcasts

How would you go about doing your first real estate deal with no experience and no capital? On this episode, Chris answers that question as he walks through the process of executing your first deal. He explains why you need to have immense knowledge of your market, understanding how to approach banks, the process of raising capital, and more. Enjoy! Follow Chris on Twitter: www.Twitter.com/FortWorthChris Learn more about Chris Powers and Fort Capital: www.FortCapitalLP.com Follow Chris on LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/in/chrispowersjr/ Follow Fort Capital on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/fort-capital (00:57) - Pick an Asset Class and a Market The FORT Podcast RE #93: How to get your first job in Real Estate (02:24) - Get Your Real Estate License (04:08) - Borrowing From a Bank (FHA Loan) (07:54) - Get to Know Your Market (10:01) - Learn How to Underwrite a Property (16:48) - Raising Money The FORT Podcast RE #81: How to Underwrite (20:39) - Setting Terms with Investors (21:26) - Understanding What a ‘Good Deal’ Looks Like (23:31) - Cold-Calling Properties & Talking to Brokers (25:08) - Finding Sub-Contractors (27:37) - After You Get a Property Under Contract (29:02) - Property Management (32:18) - More on FHA Loans & Chris’ First Deal (33:41) - Wrap Up The FORT with Chris Powers is produced by Straight Up Podcasts

Ashton Gustafson is a highly sought-after public speaker, nationally recognized Realtor, artist, musician, poet, and amateur cosmologist—in a pursuit to becoming more. He sits down with Chris to discuss the importance of making your life about "less", the benefits of reading, teaching what you learn, and the power of enneagrams and personality testing in the workplace. Enjoy! For more information on Chris Powers and Fort Capital, visit www.fortcapitallp.com. Follow Chris on Twitter! @fortworthchris Connect with The FORT by emailing us at thefortpodcast@gmail.com. 02:18 — Ashton’s Journey 05:30 — Did you have a moment of clarity that led you to something ‘better’? 07:25 — Making Your Life More and More About Less and Less 10:09 — 3 Hinges of Suffering in Life 11:45 — Ashton’s Path to Public Speaking 16:10 — Benefits of Reading, What to Read, and How Often to Read 18:27 — Learning from Real Estate Companies and Its Impact on Teams 23:00 — How do you manage a calendar with four businesses under your belt? 25:36 — How do you find the right people? 27:20 — What is the residential brokerage industry like right now? What will it look like in ten years? 34:40 — Wichita Falls Landscape: Growing? 35:46 — Enneagram Retreats, Personality Testing, Ashton’s Coaching, and Writing Poetry 44:15 — If I became aware…

Laird Sparks is a Senior Managing Director for Greystar Development and Construction Services, with responsibility for multifamily development in the Central North Region. He joined Greystar in 1998, holding various positions across multiple disciplines prior to joining the development team. Laird has been involved in all aspects of the Greystar business, including third-party property management, development, renovation, acquisitions, refinance and dispositions, and the asset management of approximately 20,000 apartment units with a capitalized value of approximately $2.5 billion. On this episode, Chris and Laird discuss the behemoth that is Greystar, their work in Texas, conventional multifamily age-restricted developments, the explosion of Single-Family Rentals, student housing, Industrial, and much more. Enjoy! Follow Chris on Twitter: www.Twitter.com/FortWorthChris Learn more about Chris Powers and Fort Capital: www.FortCapitalLP.com Follow Chris on LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/in/chrispowersjr/ Follow Fort Capital on LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/company/fort-capital/ (03:56) -  Laird’s Career Story and How Greystar Has Evolved Since Being There in 1998 (05:47) - How is Greystar set up from the national level to the regional level? (06:53) -  What does your office do and what’s your role? (07:37) - What’s changed about development over the past 14 years? (09:35) - Are there amenities that are becoming obsolete? (10:41) - Did you primarily do deals in the core during this cycle? (11:37) - What markets do you play in? (12:46) - Are entitlements in suburban markets tougher to get? (14:25) - What are the differences between urban and suburban facilities? (15:48) - Workforce Housing (16:56) - Is there anything from a cost perspective on the horizon that excites you? (20:24) -  What makes up the bulk of cost increases? (21:07) - What are the factors in labor cost increases? (22:09) - What’s driving the massive jump in rents since Covid? (24:53) - Are we anywhere close to meeting demand in apartment developments for DFW? (25:37) -  How much do property taxes impact deals? (27:02) -  Is there anything different about this cycle from the others you’ve experienced?  (28:56) - Are there any permanent changes you're making in your products in light of the pandemic? (30:19) - Why is SFR so hot right now? (34:00) - Is there anyone doing luxury SFR? (36:35) - SFR Tenant Demographics (37:17) - Leasing Factors (37:49) - How are capital markets looking at SFR? (39:36) - Is there talk about not taking the merchant developer route with SFR’s? (42:33) -  How do you define age-restricted deals? (47:13) -  Student Housing (49:38) - Senior vs. Student Demand in Regards To Capital Markets (51:47) - Thoughts on Industrial (56:01) - Is the data you have across different asset classes helpful or is it pretty siloed? (58:55) - How is Texas positioned vs. the rest of the country? (1:00:37) -  Getting a Deal Done in CA vs. TX (1:02:45) - What metrics matter most to you when underwriting a deal? (1:04:41) - Have the basis point spreads between what you’re building to and what you’re exiting on changed drastically? (1:06:30) - How are 10-year hold deals structured if you’re underwriting a Merchant Development deal?  (1:08:20) - Thoughts on Opportunity Zones (1:10:03) - Property Management (1:15:52) - Is there anything that keeps you up at night or risks in the market? (1:17:41) - Has Social Media been a major player in making the developer a ‘villain’? (1:22:09) - Is crowdsourcing the future? The FORT is produced by Johnny Peterson & Straight Up Podcasts

As the CEO of KDC, Steve Van Amburgh manages the firm’s strategic planning while coordinating new business development efforts. He also oversees KDC’s acquisition and development activities. Under his leadership, KDC completed over 154 corporate build-to-suit office and industrial projects valued at over $11 billion and totaling more than 37 million square feet. We discuss: - The process for developing corporate campuses for the likes of State Farm - The state of the office and construction market - Working with cities and municipalities as a developer We'd appreciate you filling out our audience survey, so we can continuously work on providing relevant content to our listeners.  https://www.thefortpod.com/survey Links: KDC Topics (00:00:00) - Intro (00:06:09) - Steve’s early career (00:14:10) - Buying Koll Company (00:22:47) - The importance of focus (00:25:59) - How corporate campus deals come together (00:33:00) - Negotiating the deal (00:38:48) - Architecture and design (00:42:46) - Budgeting and planning (00:46:27) - The impact of change orders (00:48:26) - When does your work on a project end?  (00:51:05) - The state of the market (00:55:46) - Capital markets (00:58:33) - Is there a market for these assets? (01:00:24) - Max bid deals (01:01:04) - What’s the hardest part of a project? (01:03:19) - Brokers (01:06:25) - How cities can help themselves and developers Support our Sponsors Vesto: https://www.vesto.com/fort Fort: https://bit.ly/FortCompanies Follow Fort on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/fort-companies/ Chris on Social Media: The Fort Podcast on Twitter/X: https://x.com/theFORTpodcast Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/thefortpodcast LinkedIn: https://bit.ly/45gIkFd   Watch The Fort on YouTube: https://bit.ly/3oynxNX Visit our website: https://bit.ly/43SOvys Leave a review on Apple: https://bit.ly/45crFD0 Leave a review on Spotify: https://bit.ly/3Krl9jO  The FORT is produced by Johnny Podcasts

Chris sits down with Bryan Perkins, CEO and President of Novaria Group which is an aerospace manufacturing company. They discuss the aerospace business, buying other businesses, life management and the power of thought. Enjoy! Follow Chris on Twitter: @Fortworthchris  Make contact with The FORT: thefortpodcast@gmail.com For more information on Chris Powers and Fort Capital, visit www.fortcapitallp.com 02:43 — Bryan’s Background in Aerospace 05:12 — Why hadn’t the consolidation of the big companies already occurred when you became an entrepreneur? 06:34 — What is aerospace? 07:55 — What is a small business to you? 09:52 — Novaria’s Business Model 11:31 — Do you have the same playbook for every company that you buy? 12:14 — Do you ask businesses to do business with each other? 13:31 — How do you source opportunities? 15:55 — Who contacts you about buying a business? 17:00 — Does the leadership and ownership usually stay on board post-close? 18:35 — What information makes you comfortable to buy? 19:22 — How many businesses do you think you have underwritten? 20:15 — What are the most common challenges across small businesses? 24:06 — Have you asked a majority of the questions before making an agreement to buy? 25:16 — How do you get the previous owners on to the plan? 26:02 — How many businesses have you bought to date? 27:01 — What is the biggest difference between owning 4 businesses vs. 14? 28:18 — What does buying a manufacturing company mean? 30:10 — How many parts do you make across all 14 businesses? 33:45 — Do you think the manufacturing equipment of the future will be more agile? 36:20 — How would you describe what 3-D printing looks like? 37:33 — What will be the biggest surprise in aerospace to the average consumer? 39:45 — Is your business going to go after consumer drones? Is that even considered aerospace? 41:03 — What is the end game for Novaria? 42:40 — How far in advance do you know that aerospace companies are buying your parts? 44:01 — Is it possible today to start a bolt building business from scratch? 45:45 — How has being in Fort Worth played a role in your business? 47:39 — If you had to give your 21-year old advice, what would it be? 57:42 — What’s the biggest difference between 100 and 800 employees? 59:57 — What is your favorite interview question? 1:01:22 — When do you find time to think? 1:13:16 — How has being a Dad changed your view on business and life? 1:15:16 — How has your relationship with your wife affected your business? What is a tip for someone looking to do better in their marriage?

Kaes has worked at Diamondback Energy since July 2016 in various roles and as President and CFO since February 2022. Prior to that, he was CEO of Bison Drilling and Field Services in Midland, TX from September 2012 to June 2016. He began his career at Citigroup as an investment banking analyst, and worked for Wexford Capital prior to joining Bison. On this episode, Chris and Kaes discuss: Learning the Oil & Gas business A timeline of Diamondback Energy The Permian Basin How to get people to love Oil & Gas again We'd appreciate you filling out our audience survey, so we can continuously work on providing relevant content to our listeners.  https://www.thefortpod.com/survey Links Diamondback Energy Kaes on Twitter Topics (00:01:48) - Kaes’ career & tennis (00:09:32) - Learning the Oil and Gas business (00:16:37) - Building Windsor (00:26:15) - High yield vs. investment grade businesses (00:31:20) - Diamondback’s merger with Energen Resources (00:34:12) - Experiences during Covid (00:39:03) - How do you source deals? (00:42:18) - The 2021 market (00:45:24) - Hedging (00:46:41) - Thoughts on the Permian basin (00:49:09) - Being a low-cost producer (00:52:07) - Learning to manage people (00:53:43) - Thoughts on the $60b Pioneer acquisition (00:55:28) - Is there a way to make people love OIl & Gas again (00:01:46) - This business is a trade (01:03:06) - Are investors coming back into the space? Support our Sponsors Relay Human Cloud: https://bit.ly/3sjQcaY Fort Capital: https://bit.ly/FortCapital Follow Fort Capital on LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/company/fort-capital/ Chris on Social Media: Twitter: https://bit.ly/3BYIjcH LinkedIn: https://bit.ly/45gIkFd   Watch The Fort on YouTube: https://bit.ly/3oynxNX Visit our website: https://bit.ly/43SOvys Leave a review on Apple: https://bit.ly/45crFD0 Leave a review on Spotify: https://bit.ly/3Krl9jO  The FORT is produced by Johnny Podcasts

Patrick Dossett is a Navy SEAL and Co-Founder of Madefor, a ten-month program that applies the principles of modern neuroscience, psychology, and physiology to make your brain and body better. On this episode, Patrick talks about his journey of becoming a SEAL and the grueling physical and mental process that develops the greatest soldiers on earth. He also talks about his transition out of the SEAL Teams into business school at Wharton and his time working at Google. Finally, he and Chris discuss launching Madefor right as the pandemic hit, learning from his Co-founder Blake Mycoskie (founder of Tom's Shoes) and how Madefor is aimed to help bring peak potential out of every student. Enjoy! (02:31) - Pat’s Story Growing Up Rogue Warrior by Richard Marcinko (03:46) - What was it that drove you to want to become a SEAL? (05:36) - Pat's Journey of Starting at the Naval Academy and Getting to BUD/S (08:31) - What’s the breakdown of mental vs. physical toughness in being a SEAL? (13:01) - Hell Week & Focusing on What’s in Front of You (19:20) - Sleep During Hell Week (20:36) - Is there a reason why we aren’t taught more about focusing on the little things in front of us? Why do we only look at the 'big wins’? Growth and Fixed Mindsets - Carol Dweck (25:30) - Was the Dweck research outcome due to more nature or nurture? (26:46) - What’s the main reason a SEAL mission fails? (32:30) - There’s Always an Opportunity to Quit (37:20) - How was your transition out of the teams? What did business school do for you? (40:58) - What was the difference in ‘thinking outside the box’ in the SEALS vs. your time working at Google? (47:25) - How did you get the idea for Madefor? (52:23) - What have you learned from your co-founder, Blake, that’s made him a great businessman? (55:24) - What is the product you’ve built? What’s the curriculum? (1:02:34) - Do people taking the class get to know other students or is there only communication with the company? (1:04:06) - How many people have gone through the program to date? (1:05:09) - What happens during a month of the program? (1:08:35) - What’s the main reason why people show up for this program? (1:14:29) - What’s one thing you believe that most people don’t? (1:15:03) - Do you have a morning routine? (1:18:44) - What’s the best advice you’ve ever been given? (1:19:26) - How can people get in touch with you? (1:20:31) - Wrap Up www.getmadefor.com Madefor on Instagram: @madefor Patrick on Instagram: @Madefor_pat The FORT with Chris Powers is produced by Straight Up Podcasts

Dean Macfarlan is the founder of Macfarlan Capital Partners, a real estate investment sponsor based in Dallas, TX. He has 40 years of industry experience in the development, acquisition, repositioning, and sale of investment properties exceeding the $1.5 billion mark. On this episode, Chris and Dean discuss: Marriage philosophy Life over living Dean’s 10 Life Lessons We'd appreciate you filling out our audience survey, so we can continuously work on providing relevant content to our listeners.  https://www.thefortpod.com/survey Links Dean's 10 Life Lessons Macfarlan Capital Partners Topics (00:00:00) - Intro (00:03:19) - Who is Dean? (00:12:01) - Coming to Christ (00:18:06) - Marriage (00:29:54) - Life over Living (00:38:19) - 10 Life Lessons Support our Sponsors Better Pitch: https://bit.ly/42d9L0I Fort Capital: https://bit.ly/FortCapital Follow Fort Capital on LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/company/fort-capital/ Chris on Social Media: X: https://bit.ly/3BYIjcH LinkedIn: https://bit.ly/45gIkFd   Watch The Fort on YouTube: https://bit.ly/3oynxNX Visit our website: https://bit.ly/43SOvys Leave a review on Apple: https://bit.ly/45crFD0 Leave a review on Spotify: https://bit.ly/3Krl9jO  The FORT is produced by Johnny Podcasts

Scott Everett founded S2 Capital in 2012 to acquire multifamily Real Estate. In the past 10 years as CEO of S2 Capital he has built a Real Estate investment company that has acquired over $6B of multifamily assets totaling 40,000 units and 3 operating companies that generate annual revenues in excess of $350M with over 600 employees. On this episode, Scott discusses how he got started in value add MF and grew to 38,000 units, how he underwrites deals, and what matters when underwriting a deal. They chat about how S2 is set up operationally and how his different teams all work together. Scott also shares why he's raising a fund after 10+ years of syndicating deal by deal. Enjoy! Learn more about Chris Powers and Fort Capital: www.FortCapitalLP.com Follow Fort Capital on LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/company/fort-capital/ Follow Chris on Twitter: www.Twitter.com/FortWorthChris  Follow Chris on LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/in/chrispowersjr/  Subscribe to The Fort on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCuJ32shRt8Od3MxMY-keTSQ Follow The Fort on Instagram: www.Instagram.com/TheFortPodcast (02:07) - Scott’s RE career (08:42) - Did something happen in your childhood that gave you your sense of confidence? (10:48) - Scott’s first deal for 184 units (15:33) - What are illegitimate reasons a property isn’t performing? (18:11) - How do you think about approaching a deal? (20:55) - How much has the RE landscape changed over the past decade? (23:26) - Being laser focused on one asset (26:38) - How do you think about due diligence? (29:20) - Scott walks us through the entire deal process (35:27) - Why do you renovate units so often? (36:39) - What’s the first 90-180 days after closing look like? (40:41) - How long does a full unit rehab take? (41:22) - When do you talk to folks about renewals? (43:18) - Do you want to get every unit updated within 2 years? (48:09) - What separates you from competition in the construction part of the process? (52:08) - What are you experiencing in the current labor market? (55:33) - How do you think about staying on top with materials supply? (57:20) - Are rents so competitive that class B tenants are moving up to Class A apartments? (58:50) - What do you want your asset managers focused on? (1:02:15) - What’s your ReFi strategy? (1:02:48) - What’s the difference between Fanny & Freddy loans? (1:03:44) - How fluid is the process of getting to your projected NOI number? (1:05:20) - Where do most people miss the boat in terms of Capex? (1:07:10) - How are you refreshing your portfolio today? (1:11:14) - Is there any technology that has your attention right now? Fetch (1:14:25) - Why are you raising a fund? (1:30:44) - Is there anything out there that scares you? (1:33:59) - What’s your words of wisdom on building a great family business? (1:37:53) - What is the S2 foundation? The Fort is produced by Johnny Podcasts

John C. Goff is an investor based in Fort Worth, Texas. His family office, Goff Capital, invests across multiple sectors including wellness, aerospace, energy, gaming, entertainment, and real estate. Among his holdings are Canyon Ranch – the world’s recognized leader in health and wellness, and Crescent Energy (NYSE:CRGY), where he serves as Chairman of both companies. John is also Chairman and principal owner of Crescent Real Estate which has assets under management, development, and investment capacity of over $10 billion. On this episode, Chris and John discuss: - John’s career working with Richard Rainwater - Building, selling, and buying back Crescent from Morgan Stanley - Thoughts on the current real estate market - The challenges and opportunities facing the city of Fort Worth We'd appreciate you filling out our audience survey, so we can continuously work on providing relevant content to our listeners.  https://www.thefortpod.com/survey Links Crescent Real Estate Canyon Ranch Topics (00:00:00) Intro (00:03:02) Suffering from ADHD (00:05:11) The impact of studying accounting (00:07:35) Richard Rainwater (00:17:41) Building Crescent & selling to Morgan Stanley (00:37:49) Buying Crescent back (00:46:57) Thoughts on the current RE market (00:55:27) The future of work is in the office (01:01:11) Class AA Office opportunities (01:02:35) Raising a GP fund (01:04:16) Thoughts Oil & Gas (01:18:06) Canyon Ranch (01:28:11) The opportunity for Fort Worth (01:43:58) What do you wish you had spent more time doing or less time doing? Support our Sponsors Better Pitch: https://bit.ly/42d9L0I Fort Capital: https://bit.ly/FortCapital Follow Fort Capital on LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/company/fort-capital/ Chris on Social Media: Twitter: https://bit.ly/3BYIjcH LinkedIn: https://bit.ly/45gIkFd Watch The Fort on YouTube: https://bit.ly/3oynxNX Visit our website: https://bit.ly/43SOvys Leave a review on Apple: https://bit.ly/45crFD0 Leave a review on Spotify: https://bit.ly/3Krl9jO  The FORT is produced by Johnny Podcasts

 We'd appreciate you filling out our audience survey, so we can continuously work on providing relevant content to our listeners.  https://www.thefortpod.com/survey Liberty writes about business & investing, science & technology, and the arts. He allows others to leverage his curiosity by sharing the most interesting things that he finds and thinks about in his newsletter and podcast, Liberty’s Highlights. It’s a Serendipity Engine to add some exploration in your life. On this episode, Chris & Liberty discuss: ➡️ His process for discovering the best things on the internet and writing about the to 16,000+ readers ➡️ Why he'd put 100% of his net worth into Constellation Software ➡️ The impacts of ChatGPT & AI ➡️ The value of being a creator and a discussion about Founders Podcast Chapters: (00:03:48) - Coming up with the Liberty RPF name (00:05:07) - How would you describe ‘Exploration as a Service’? (00:07:46) - What have you learned from writing 400+ Newsletters? (00:10:40) - How do you know if you’ve done your best work? (00:11:53) - If you had to invest 100% of your net worth in one company, which would it be? (00:22:44) - How would you value Founders Podcast? (00:27:57) - Is there any pattern you’ve seen that makes a company explode in growth? (00:30:21) - The changing business model of spokespeople having equity or owning the brands they promote (00:36:23) - Is legacy media dead? (00:45:03 - ChatGPT vs. Authenticity (00:50:19) - The hyper growth of AI companies (00:56:38) - The power of the Sauna  (01:02:08) - How can people find you online? Additional Resources 👉 Subscribe to Liberty RPF: https://twitter.com/LibertyRPF 👉 Follow Liberty RPF on Twitter: https://www.libertyrpf.com/ ➡️ Learn more about Xeal: https://bit.ly/XealEnergy ➡️ Fort Capital: https://bit.ly/FortCapital ➡️ Follow Fort Capital on LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/company/fort-capital/ ➡️ Follow Chris on Twitter: www.twitter.com/FortWorthChris ➡️ Follow Chris on LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/in/chrispowersjr/ ➡️ Sign Up for our Newsletter: https://newsletter.thefortpod.com/ ➡️ Subscribe to The FORT on YouTube -- The FORT Podcast with Chris Powers is a place where you can find meaningful conversations about entrepreneurship, real estate, investing, and more. Be sure to follow the podcast, so you never miss an episode! The FORT is produced by Johnny Podcasts

Chris is on vacation! So please enjoy this re-mastered version of episode #38 of The FORT with guest Pete Chambers. Pete Chambers is the past President of the West Texas Chapter of Young Presidents’ Organization and continues to be an active member. He is also Chairman of the Board at Rivertree Academy, a private, Christian school serving under-resourced students in the Lake Como community of Fort Worth. His favorite quote is Robert Greenleaf’s statement that “Good leaders must first become good servants.” Chris and Pete sit down to discuss Pete's development of "The Roadmap", the process of selling a business, The Young Presidents' Organization, and being a father. Enjoy! Follow Chris on Twitter: www.Twitter.com/FortWorthChris Learn more about Chris Powers and Fort Capital: www.FortCapitalLP.com Follow Chris on LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/in/chrispowersjr/ (03:35) — How did you plan for the “post-50” life? (07:48)  — Be a Fighter Pilot as an Entrepreneur (09:47) — What did you do with the discovery of Bob Buford and the bell curve of entrepreneurship? (13:50) — What did you implement early on that you needed to be intentional about? (14:58) — Pete’s 10 Mile-Radius for Finding a Business to Buy (16:12) — How close do you walk the line with being home in time for dinner due to work? (17:17) — How do you allow your faith to guide you in business? How can you keep these two aligned? (18:58) — Your CEO is Forrest Gump (21:13) — What does servant leadership mean to you? (25:13) — What is the one thing that will set companies up to fail? How do you give recognition to employees? (28:06) — Pick Out Three Things That Your People Do Well (29:01) — When did you know it was time to sell your business? (32:39) — Words of Wisdom for First-Time Sellers (34:07) — Pete’s Mission Statement and Inspiration (35:15) — The Roadmap (43:47) — What are the things that people often struggle with in the second half of life? (48:32) — Loneliness at the Top (49:57) — The Power of YPO (Young President’s Organization) (52:27) — Pete’s Relationship with Rivertree Academy (56:54) — Being a Father, Father-Daughter Trips, and Managing Your Marriage (01:04:17) — Pete’s Painting The FORT is produced by Straight Up Podcasts

When starting a career in RE Private Equity, should you stay small or grow a platform? On this episode, Chris answers that question as he walks through the process of growing a real estate company from a one-man band to 25+ people. He explains how your role changes as you do more deals, why hiring is inevitable, the challenges of hiring the right people, implementing processes and operations, and more. Enjoy!  Follow Chris on Twitter: www.Twitter.com/FortWorthChris Learn more about Chris Powers and Fort Capital: www.FortCapitalLP.com Follow Fort Capital on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/fort-capital/ Follow Chris on LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/in/chrispowersjr/ (01:27) - When You’re in the Early Stages of a Small Business (1-2 People) (04:03) - Finding and Setting Up Your HQ (04:41) - Determining the Future of Your Company (05:13) - Option 1: Doing 1-2 Deals Per Year Accounting Software - Quickbooks (13:04) - What happens after closing your first deal and you’re looking for your next deal? (14:52) - How will your role change as your company grows? (15:39) - “Doubling” Your Business After Year 1 (17:20) - Hiring a Commercial Loan Assistant (19:11) - Challenges in Hiring Someone (22:08) - Hiring Asset Managers in Year 3 (24:01) - Creating Processes (25:58) - Increasing Your Prices and Preserving Fee Streams (29:09) - Making the Leap from 5-6 People to 25 people (37:31) - Wrap Up The FORT with Chris Powers is produced by Straight Up Podcasts

Jason Baxter returns to The FORT Podcast to discuss the year of 2019 for Fort Capital. Jason and Chris discuss the importance of building out Objectives & Key Results, offering a wonderfully simple example of how OKRs can be implemented across any organization. They also discuss the influence of Jim Collins' Good to Great, their venture into property management, lessons learned from the industrial asset class, C.O.R., and more. Enjoy! For more information on Chris Powers and Fort Capital, visit www.fortcapitallp.com. Follow Chris on Twitter! @fortworthchris 02:30 — Building Out OKRs 16:09 — OKRs Explained: The Super Bowl Example 21:15 — Fort Capital’s Objectives & Key Results for 2020 22:57 — Good to Great by Jim Collins 30:28 — Property Management 38:47 — Investing in Class B Industrial 45:45 — C.O.R. Implementation in 2019 52:17 — F.O.S. (Fort Operating System) 59:53 — Fort Capital Highlights The FORT with Chris Powers is brought to you by Straight Up Podcasts.

David Senra is the Founder of Founders Podcast. David has devoted his career to learning from history's greatest entrepreneurs.  David is on a mission to document the best ideas from the life and work of history’s most formidable people —and share those lessons through his podcast so others can benefit. He lives in Miami with his wife and two children.  On this episode, Chris and David discuss: His story and the challenges he faced growing up that shaped who he is today. Building his pod – a peak inside what an average week looks like. A deep dive discussion on founder characteristics and everything he's learned from reading hundreds of auto-biographies on the world's most extraordinary founders. A discussion on the economics and business of podcasting. Learn more about Chris Powers and Fort Capital: www.FortCapitalLP.com Follow Fort Capital on LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/company/fort-capital/ Follow Chris on Twitter: www.Twitter.com/FortWorthChris  Follow Chris on LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/in/chrispowersjr/  Subscribe to The Fort on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCuJ32shRt8Od3MxMY-keTSQ Support our Sponsors: Frank Kent Cadillac CRE Daily Newsletter  Fort Capital  More on David Senra: David on Twitter Listen to Founders Podcast Links to Books, Apps, Websites, etc. Mentioned on this episode: Sam Walton Autobiography Paul Graham essays Jocko Podcast The Everything Store Kanye West Netflix documentary Michael Arrieta on The Fort (Garden City) Trader Joe’s Autobiography Readwise App Becoming Steve Jobs Charles Kettering Biography A Man For All Markets Dark Genius of Wall Street Topics: (3:58) - Introducing David (6:11) - David’s background (15:32) - David’s passion for reading (17:00) - Reflecting on how we are shaped by our past (22:37) - Do you think it’s possible to build a generational business without childhood trauma? (30:20) - What led to you starting the podcast? (43:36) - What kept you going during your first 2 years when the show wasn’t profitable? (1:06:55) - What does a week in the life of David Senra look like? (1:15:07) - What was it about your appearance on ‘Invest like the Best’ that exploded the show? (1:20:09) - How big is the opportunity for podcasting? (1:50:46)- Of everyone you have studied, who is the #1 person in your eyes? The Fort is produced by Johnny Podcasts 

Emily Holdman is Managing Director of Permanent Equity - a firm using 30-year funds to invest with no intention of selling in small and medium-sized private businesses. In her role, Emily is principally responsible for leading the firm's origination and investment process, and its marketing. On this episode, Chris and Emily discuss: How to know when a seller is ready, and when to move forward on a business Underwriting businesses Buying an Amusement Park Ride Manufacturer How to ask great questions when entering an unfamiliar industry We'd appreciate you filling out our audience survey, so we can continuously work on providing relevant content to our listeners.  https://www.thefortpod.com/survey Links Permanent Equity Emily on Twitter Topics (00:02:34) Emily’s background and career (00:06:47) Acquiring MediaCross and growing the business (00:13:00) Moving into Acquisitions at 23 years old (00:18:06) Going three years without acquiring  (00:24:10) How to know when a seller is ready (00:31:50) Emily’s role at PE (00:33:25) When do you know it’s time to move forward with a seller? (00:38:40) How many businesses do you see before moving on one? (00:45:21) Why does everyone disagree over working capital? (00:47:23) How to underwrite a business in Alaska (00:56:21) Why PE loves Texas & Enthusiast Businesses (01:02:02) Buying an Amusement Park Ride Manufacturer (01:07:04) What are some questions you ask early on to become familiar with an industry? (01:12:32) How do you know if a seller is giving good answers if you’re unfamiliar with an industry? (01:16:52) Transaction tensions (01:23:46) Why the Twitter sentiment on self-reliance is annoying (01:32:02) Women in Investing (01:39:23) Advice for girls Support our Sponsors Fort Capital: https://bit.ly/FortCapital Follow Fort Capital on LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/company/fort-capital/ Chris on Social Media: Twitter: https://bit.ly/3BYIjcH LinkedIn: https://bit.ly/45gIkFd   Watch The Fort on YouTube: https://bit.ly/3oynxNX Visit our website: https://bit.ly/43SOvys Leave a review on Apple: https://bit.ly/45crFD0 Leave a review on Spotify: https://bit.ly/3Krl9jO  The FORT is produced by Johnny Podcasts

Fort Capital CEO Chris Powers discusses the ins and outs of finding a job in the real estate industry for those graduating college. He discusses the top 3 things people should know when looking for a job, the importance of networking, what to look for in companies when you start to narrow your search, preparing for the interview, big vs. small company experiences, and much more. Enjoy!  Follow Chris on Twitter: www.Twitter.com/FortWorthChris Learn more about Chris Powers & Fort Capital: www.FortCapitalLP.com (01:56) - Disclaimer to College Students (02:29) - The 3 Things College Graduates Should Know When Looking for a Job (03:59) - #1 Picking the Right Asset Class to Work In (05:24) - #2 Pick a Market You Want to Be In (06:45) - #3 Picking a Line of Work (14:58) - Proptech (18:01) - Networking and Honing in on Places to Work (21:00) - Reaching Out to Folks You May Want to Work With/For (25:32) - Things to Think About When Analyzing Potential Companies You May Work For (28:41) - Find Out How a Company is Using Technology (31:28) - What are some red flags in employers? (33:51) - Getting a Masters Degree vs. Work Experience (36:11) - Things to Be Prepared for in an Interview Situation (37:07) - Things that Catch our Eye for New Hires Coming Out of College (42:26) - Big Company vs. small company: Which do you join? (51:49) - What is an entry-level position that gives you the most optionality as you move through your career? (1:02:36) - Other Things to Think About (1:02:51) - Internships for Current Students, Argus Course, Utilizing Free Online Resources, Getting a Real Estate License (1:04:14) - Sitting in on City Hall Developer Meetings and Zoning Commissions (1:04:43) - Find Physical Places that are Interesting to You (1:08:00) - Wrap Up Did this help you find a job, or maybe you have a question that wasn’t answered? Email Chris at thefortpodcast@gmail.com The FORT with Chris Powers is produced by Straight Up Podcasts

Stephen Bailey, Senior Managing Director at JLL, joins Chris again to discuss the current state of capital markets and the ideal situation for sellers going to market - hint: Low WALT. They also dive into land prices, forwards, and cost to construct and how the demand continues to rise, despite the volatile market. Enjoy! Learn more about Chris Powers and Fort Capital: www.FortCapitalLP.com Follow Fort Capital on LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/company/fort-capital/ Follow Chris on Twitter: www.Twitter.com/FortWorthChris  Follow Chris on LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/in/chrispowersjr/  Subscribe to The Fort on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCuJ32shRt8Od3MxMY-keTSQ Follow The Fort on Instagram: www.Instagram.com/TheFortPodcast (03:15) - The State of the Market Post-2022 and Where Stephen Sees the Opportunity (07:15) - When did you start noticing volatility in the market? (08:59) - How are capital flows reacting to this? (12:03) - Are Lenders getting hesitant? (14:40) - The State of the Capital Markets (15:50) - How many buyers are shifting their focus to industrial from other assets? (18:45) - What due diligence do you conduct on a buyer? (20:23) - What Are Some Interesting Terms You’re Seeing in Leases (23:17) - How is Texas performing compared to other hot markets? (24:32) - Thoughts on Amazon (27:17) - Thoughts on Large Industrial Tenants & Development (33:09) - Land Prices (34:49) - Construction & loan rates (35:44) - Class B Industrial (37:06) - Forwards (38:04) - Thoughts on Industrial Outdoor Storage (41:11) - What happens to debt when you get above a certain purchase price? (42:39) - How Fort Capital is Applying What Stephen is Seeing (54:29) - Final Thoughts The Fort is produced by Johnny Podcasts

Cody Campbell is the Co-Chief Executive Officer of Double Eagle Energy Holdings III LLC, a partnership formed with Apollo Global Management, and co-founder of Double Eagle Development.  Campbell began his business career at Texas Tech University, where he and John Sellers founded a successful commercial real estate development firm. He graduated with honors with a Bachelor’s in finance and economics and a master’s in finance. After graduation, he played offensive guard for the Indianapolis Colts. Campbell is a member of YPO (Young Presidents’ Organization), serves on the Advisory Council for the Rawls College of Business at Texas Tech, and serves as a Board Member of the Texas Higher Education Coordinating Board. He lives in Fort Worth with his wife and four children. On this episode, Chris and Cody discuss: The story of their $6.4B sale to Pioneer. Discussion on current energy markets and policy. Why we need to change the narrative on oil & gas to attract more labor into the industry. We talk about the NCAA & NIL programs and how Texas Tech has built The Matador Club to support athletes. Support our Sponsors: Frank Kent Cadillac CRE Daily Newsletter  Fort Capital  Juniper Square Learn more about Chris Powers and Fort Capital: www.FortCapitalLP.com Follow Fort Capital on LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/company/fort-capital/ Follow Chris on Twitter: www.Twitter.com/FortWorthChris  Follow Chris on LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/in/chrispowersjr/  Subscribe to The Fort on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCuJ32shRt8Od3MxMY-keTSQ Topics: (4:31) - Selling Double Eagle 3 to Pioneer (8:33) - Why was the industry valuing on a price per acre vs. EBITDA? (10:21) - What do “bits & pieces” mean and how are you able to do it at scale? (13:12) - Have there been 2 types of oil businesses that emerged since the shale revolution? (14:01) - Was there ever a moment during the pandemic when you considered not drilling? (15:00) - When did it become clear that selling was the best option? (19:20) - What blows up a deal like this? (20:13) - Starting back up again (22:02) - What are you seeing in the current state of the energy market? (30:24) - Is there any shift in the capital markets? (32:29) - Why has the Biden Admin shifted its stance on domestic production? (34:49) - How much of an impact does the Russia/Ukraine conflict have? (36:42) - What are you seeing in the labor market for Energy and Oil & Gas? (38:57) - How can the industry change its marketing efforts to encourage people to work in this field? (40:30) - How does this industry bring the rest of the world out of poverty? (43:21) - What’s happening outside of the US as we globally see energy prices spike? (44:47) - Even if we all flipped to a pro-oil stance instantly, how deep are we in the hole already? (47:19) - What are the different acreage tiers in oil fields? (50:16) - If oil is at $92 today, what’s the rate of return for drilling a well? (51:50) - Is there any technology on the horizon that will make it easier to get oil out of the ground? (53:01) - Why did the Kline Shale flop? (54:55) - Why did the Permian basin end up being such a hit? (55:48) - Where do you think we will peak in 2023? (57:02) - What is the NIL within the NCAA? (1:01:29) - The Matador Club at Texas Tech (1:04:33) - Is there a worry that the schools with the most capital secede and create their own league? (1:06:14) - Focusing athletes on their education (1:08:08) - Who’s making the rules for NIL? (1:09:05) - What is it that continues to motivate you? The Fort is produced by Johnny Podcasts

In this conversation, I sit down with my partner and Fort Capital CEO Jason Baxter to talk about our current fundraise, company wins, building out Fort’s custom AI, deal pipelines, profitability, how the team has grown, and an outlook for 2024. Past 'Year in Review' episodes: 2018 2019 2020 2021 2022 We'd appreciate you filling out our audience survey, so we can continuously work on providing relevant content to our listeners.  https://www.thefortpod.com/survey Topics: (00:00:00) - Intro (00:04:17) - Reflecting on 2023 (00:08:07) - Fundraising (00:16:16) - Company Wins (AI, Company Challenges, Team Meeting Structures) (00:35:05) - Fort Capital’s custom AI - Foster (00:52:30) - Pipeline (01:00:49) - Profitability (01:07:20) - Highlighting the Team (01:10:33) - 2024 Outlook Support our Sponsors Better Pitch: https://bit.ly/42d9L0I Juniper Square: https://bit.ly/45yiYUq Fort Capital: https://bit.ly/FortCapital Follow Fort Capital on LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/company/fort-capital/ Chris on Social Media: X: https://bit.ly/3BYIjcH LinkedIn: https://bit.ly/45gIkFd   Watch The Fort on YouTube: https://bit.ly/3oynxNX Visit our website: https://bit.ly/43SOvys Leave a review on Apple: https://bit.ly/45crFD0 Leave a review on Spotify: https://bit.ly/3Krl9jO  The FORT is produced by Johnny Podcasts

Moses Kagan is the Co-Founder and Head of Adaptive Realty, a Los Angeles-based development, and property management group. Since 2018, Moses has overseen the repositioning of 80 properties in Los Angeles and grown Adaptive from $0 to $110M of property under management. Moses joins Chris for his third appearance on The FORT Podcast. In this two-part episode, they discuss the decision to not deploy a fund he raised in early 2020 and his new core strategy. They also explore rent control vs non-rent control. How he talks to his family about wealth and potentially taking over his business, learnings from ReConvene, and where we go from here.... Follow Chris on Twitter: www.Twitter.com/FortWorthChris Learn more about Chris Powers and Fort Capital: www.FortCapitalLP.com Follow Chris on LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/in/chrispowersjr/ Follow Fort Capital on LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/company/fort-capital/ Watch this episode on YouTube: https://youtu.be/Ci-4AXwSZOI (2:51) - Moses’ journey through ReTwit (4:24) - What do you think the next 2-3 years look like for you in this online journey? (6:35) - How do you explain this Twitter world you’ve built to people not in the know? (8:04) - What your experience putting on ReConvene and what does it mean for the greater RE industry? (12:54) - Was there anything that stood out from the feedback you got from the event that you’ll be implementing going forward? (14:47) - Thoughts on ‘Quality’ when it comes to Moses’ expectations for doing a deal to lead into his new buy strategy (21:28) - Bank’s attitude toward owning an asset for a year vs. having a loan on the asset (25:36) - Spreadsheets vs. reality: experienced investors are losing out to inexperienced investors (27:07) - How are you processing all of the craziness in the CA real estate market? (29:52) - Moses’ Fund and the investor reactions to not spending any of it over Covid (35:20) - Dealing with the eviction moratorium in LA The FORT is produced by Johnny Peterson & Straight Up Podcasts

Chris sits down with Mike Sroka, CEO and Co-Founder of Dealpath. They discuss how Dealpath has been able to help Fort Capital as well as numerous other real estate development companies. Dealpath is one of the fastest growing companies out of Silicon Valley looking to streamline work for companies across the country. Enjoy! For more information on Chris Powers and Fort Capital, visit www.fortcapitallp.com Follow Chris on Twitter: @Fortworthchris Make Contact with The FORT at thefortpodcast@gmail.com 01:00 — How did Dealpath come to be? 04:30 — Have you found that the software is better for a smaller or bigger business? 08:10 — Have you found that a company that has a higher number of assets under management uses it differently than one that has less? 09:06 — What can you do with the fact that you have everyone’s attention as Dealpath is seen by every member of the company? 12:33 — Have you had people attempt to use the platform for reasons other than real estate? Is the platform capable of this? 14:57 — When did you see a lot of people showing interest in CRE Technology? 19:16 — What was the tipping point when you decided you were going to start your own company? 21:03 — How hard is it to start a tech company if you do not have a tech background? 25:25 — How do you find a co-founder or tech talent if tech is not your world? 28:31 — What were some of the early challenges you faced starting Dealpath? What are some of the challenges that you face today? 33:59 — How are you hiring for engineering-type roles to ensure you get the best talent? 36:51 — What has the fundraising process been like? 40:16 — Is there a big difference that you see between an angel investor and a Series B investor? 42:43 — What is the best and worst advice that you have ever received? 46:28 — Who needs to be thinking about using DealPath and how can they get in touch with you?

Kari Crowe is the Co-Founder and CEO of Melt Ice Cream. She and Chris discuss Kari's journey across the country meeting with Ice Cream makers, her early days of the company, handling criticism as well as her experiences running a 100-mile race. Enjoy! Connect with The FORT by emailing us at thefortpodcast@gmail.com  For more information on Chris Powers and Fort Capital, visit www.fortcapitallp.com Follow Chris on twitter! @fortworthchris 2:30 - How the idea of Melt came to be 4:24 - Were you looking to start a business or looking to solve a problem? 5: 22 - Did someone give you a playbook for researching Ice Cream/Melt? 6:20 - was there ever any moments of doubt on this trip? 7:35 - How long was the journey from the research trip to signing the lease? 10:23- How did you decide on flavors? 11:05- How did you know where to spend your money 13:35 - how did customers shape Melt in the early days? 15:20 - When did you hire your first employee?  16:28 - What did a day for you look like when it was only you running things? 18:20 - did someone teach you about customer service value or was it self-learned? 20:40 - Whats something that comes to mind thats important when starting a customer service business 21:50 - How do you train employees? 25:08 - Do you have a favorite interview question? 26:06 - How many locations are open? 30:19 - was there ever a time you thought about outsourcing ice cream making rather than making it in-house? 33:00 - #1 sellers at Melt 33:20 - What was the process of bringing your husband into the business? 35:46 - How valuable has EOS been?  38:30 - 5 year growth plan for Melt 39:40 - How impactful has social media been for Melt? 40:55 - handling negative criticism 44:07 - Mentorship 44:45 - Kari’s journey running a 100- mile race 51:40- What does Fort Worth mean to you? "The FORT" is brought to you by Straight Up Podcasts LLC

Fort Capital COO, Jason Baxter, returns to discuss Fort Capital's 2020 'Year in Review'. On this episode, Chris and Jason discuss the processes implemented in 2019 that helped our team through the pandemic in 2020, starting a property management company, doubling down on industrial, key improvements made to the team, the importance of technology & AI for your business, and much more. Click here to read Fort Capital's 2020 Annual Letter. Enjoy!  Follow Chris on Twitter: www.Twitter.com/FortWorthChris Learn more about Chris Powers and Fort Capital: www.FortCapitalLP.com Follow Chris on LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/in/chrispowersjr/ (00:52) - What are the things we did as a company as it relates to COVID? What did we do in 2019 that positioned us for success? (04:45) - The Flywheel at Fort Capital Turning the Flywheel by Jim Collins (10:13) - The First 2 Months of 2020 and Getting Into Property Management Fort Capital 2018 Year in Review Fort Capital 2019 Year in Review (14:22) - Why We Selected Yardi (16:17) - Onboarding our Properties Pre-COVID and During COVID (16:57) - Doubling Down on Industrial (20:39) - COR Improvements in 2020 [Cutting Costs & Managing Data] (25:33) - Working With the Banks FORT Episode #59 with James Hill (On Banking) (29:02) - What are some key things we did to improve the company on a department level? (34:05) - Improving Investor Reporting (36:38) - The Importance of Technology to Make Your Business Better (41:01) - Some of the Tools We’ve Built and How We’re Thinking About Acquisitions in 2021 (45:05) - The Predictability Score (54:08) - Fort Capital’s Acquisition Consultant Program & Broker Incentive Program (58:27) - Final Stats for 2020 (Closing, Raising, Investors) and Goals for 2021 (1:00:58) - Our Shameless Ask & What Fort Capital is Looking For (1:01:40) - Final Thoughts and Goals Looking at 2021 The FORT with Chris Powers is produced by Straight Up Podcasts

Sean Sweeney is the Co-Founder of Hall Sweeney Properties, a Minnesota-based multi-family development company. On this episode, Sean talks about his journey working as a receptionist in the industry, navigating through the '08 crisis, and ultimately founding his own firm. Sean also breaks down the process of a ground-up development including what to look for in sites, bringing on architects and contractors, his passion for design, terms to look for in contracts, property management, and stabilization. Enjoy!  Follow Chris on Twitter: www.Twitter.com/FortWorthChris Learn more about Chris Powers and Fort Capital: www.FortCapitalLP.com Follow Chris on LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/in/chrispowersjr/ Follow Fort Capital on LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/company/fort-capital/ Sean on Twitter: www.Twitter.com/SeanDSweeney (02:35) - Sean’s Background and Early Career as a Receptionist at Trammel Crowe (07:52) - What did you do to position yourself as a person to hire for project manager when it was the right time? (10:19) - Sean’s Movement During the ’08 Crisis  (17:01) - Sean’s Jump to Starting His Own Organization and Decision to Focus on Class A Urban Infill  (21:53) - How did you find your partner and what role does he play in the company? (24:03) - Setting the Stage - Are there any other full-time employees in the company or is it just you and Jeff? (26:58) - How long do these deals take from walking the site for the first time to where it’s stabilized? (31:12) - What makes a site ‘great’ for you in a project? (34:33) - Is most of the land you're putting under contract un-entitled for multi-family? (36:16) - How do you find sites? (39:07) - What does your preliminary underwriting process look like? (42:12) - How do you pull rent prices? (42:48) - The LOI Process & 3rd Party Reports (47:06) - What terms matter in contracts and what does the site need to be when you’re ready to close a year later? (50:58) - What stages of the contract do you put up hard money? (52:13) - What city approvals are you typically getting on deals? (54:05) - At what point are you hiring the architect and does the GC participate with them? How do you come up with a budget that fits your design and that you’re comfortable the GC can deliver? (57:03) - Are there any big points in a contract with a GC that matter? (1:00:47) - Who is accountable for the MEP and structural engineers: the architect, the contractor, or you? (1:01:17) - Where do you get inspiration for design? (1:03:35) - Do you spend more on projects because you’re so design-forward? (1:06:03) - Do you get paid premiums in rent because of your design approach? (1:07:27) - Property Management Needs on 45-unit Property vs. a 100+ Unit (1:09:01) - Does your architect mock up your interior as well? (1:09:41) - Who does your common amenity furniture? (1:09:57) - How do you process draw requests? (1:11:04) - How do you finance projects and what happens when you stabilize since you are looking for long-term holds? (1:15:40) - What’s the most popular unit size right now? (1:16:59) - What amenities matter right now? (1:18:59) - Are there any repeat issues you’ve seen from design to breaking ground? (1:20:46) - What are some of the biggest surprises that you weren’t expecting as you look back? (1:22:42) - How did the civil unrest in MN last year affect your business? (1:27:25) - What’s the best book you’ve ever read? Rich Dad Poor Dad by Robert Kiyosaki Emotional Intelligence (EQ) - Daniel Goldman (1:29:33) - How can people find you? Twitter - www.Twitter.com/SeanDSweeney seandsweeney@gmail.com The FORT with Chris Powers is produced by Straight Up Podcasts

We'd appreciate you filling out our audience survey, so we can continuously work on providing relevant content to our listeners. Responses received by 05/11/23 will be entered in a drawing for $500 cash. http://www.thefortpod.com/survey EPISODE #266 In today’s episode, Chris is joined by Billy McFarland, the founder of the controversial Fyre Festival event. The Fyre Festival dominated headlines in April 2017 when videos surfaced online promoting the festival featuring celebrities such as Kendall Jenner, Bella Hadid, and others. However, after suffering a series of management and administration problems, the festival was canceled after some guests had arrived, leading to a number of lawsuits and US federal investigations. Just six weeks later, Billy was the subject of an FBI search in his apartment and soon handcuffed and taken to jail, where he was eventually sentenced to 6 years imprisonment before being released early in 2022. Since then, Billy has started his newest venture, PYRT, which he describes as a “virtual immersive decentralized reality.” In today’s episode, Billy and Chris sit down to discuss what happened at the Fyre Festival, stories from his time in prison, why things go viral, and what he’s working on now. Make sure to check it out!  Key Takeaways: Intro (00:00) How Fyre App began (01:38) What actually happened at Fyre Festival (07:36) What did Billy learn from the event? (14:32) The aftermath (17:38) First day in prison (26:39) How Billy got in trouble in jail (31:47) What did Billy do there? (44:05) Getting a second chance (54:25) The power of virality (59:19) Billy’s new venture (1:05:03) Additional Resources 👉 Check Billy out on Twitter 👉 Check out Billy's latest project: PYRT ➡️ Learn more about Relay Human Cloud ➡️ Fort Capital: www.FortCapitalLP.com ➡️ Follow Fort Capital on LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/company/fort-capital/ ➡️ Follow Chris on Twitter: www.twitter.com/FortWorthChris ➡️ Follow Chris on LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/in/chrispowersjr/ ➡️ Sign Up for our Newsletter: https://newsletter.thefortpod.com/ ➡️ Subscribe to The FORT on YouTube -- The FORT Podcast with Chris Powers is a place where you can find meaningful conversations about entrepreneurship, real estate, investing, and more. Be sure to follow the podcast, so you never miss an episode!

Jesse is a founder who bootstrapped and scaled Employer.com, Recruiter.com, Before You Apply, and BountyJobs.com into a $500M+ HR Tech powerhouse. He built these brands by solving global problems in EOR, payroll, hiring, and workforce management for companies of all sizes. Most recently, Jesse has gone viral for his public bid to acquire TikTok, alongside some of the most influential names on the internet. He also recently acquired Bench within 48 hours of its announced shutdown and was able to keep the company online for the bookkeeping needs of its thousands of users.  We discuss: - Acquiring Bench via X - How Jesse structures his acquisitions and organization - The People’s Bid for TikTok We'd appreciate you filling out our audience survey, so we can continuously work on providing relevant content to our listeners.  https://www.thefortpod.com/survey Links: Jesse on X - https://x.com/JesseTinsley Bench.co - https://www.bench.co/ Employer.com - https://www.employer.com/ Support our Sponsors Better Pitch: https://bit.ly/42d9L0I Vesto - https://www.vesto.com/fort Bullpen RE - https://www.bullpenre.com/ Topics: (00:00:00) - Intro (00:03:13) - Acquiring Bench (00:21:29) - Jesse’s background (00:24:10) - Talent Density (00:25:57) - Acquisitions and integrations (00:27:55) - Building an ops playbook (00:31:46) - Setting annual goals (00:33:45) - What makes a great VC Partner? (00:36:22) - What kind of acquisitions do you pursue? (00:40:50) - Making the bid for TikTok (00:52:42) - What entrepreneurs do you admire? Chris on Social Media: The Fort Podcast on Twitter/X: https://x.com/theFORTpodcast Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/thefortpodcast LinkedIn: https://bit.ly/45gIkFd   Watch The Fort on YouTube: https://bit.ly/3oynxNX Visit our website: https://bit.ly/43SOvys Leave a review on Apple: https://bit.ly/45crFD0 Leave a review on Spotify: https://bit.ly/3Krl9jO  The FORT is produced by Johnny Podcasts

Paul Renner is a former Commander in the U.S. Navy, and was deployed in Operation Desert Storm as well as Afghanistan.   We discuss: Reclaiming American Institutions The state of the U.S. Military China, Iran, Russia, Ukraine, and the Military Industrial Complex Immigration The Future of America We'd appreciate you filling out our audience survey, so we can continuously work on providing relevant content to our listeners.  https://www.thefortpod.com/survey Topics (00:00:00) - Intro (00:03:02) - How losing an election led to becoming speaker of the house of Florida (00:04:30) - Reclaiming American Institutions (00:10:57) - The uni party (00:13:23) - The state of the Military (00:16:42) - Ukraine and North Carolina (00:20:05) - The military-industrial complex (00:22:13) - China (00:27:39) - Iran (00:29:56) - Russia (00:31:13) - Immigration (00:33:29) - Is it possible to be a true public servant? (00:36:08) - How much impact can you have with term limits? (00:42:11) - Working with Ron DeSantis (00:45:32) - Disney (00:52:43) - Voter ID (00:56:32) - Property Insurance & Florida RE (00:59:57) - The Future of America (01:06:40) - What can the average person do? Support our Sponsors Vesto: https://www.vesto.com/fort Fort: https://bit.ly/FortCompanies Follow Fort on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/fort-companies/ Chris on Social Media: The Fort Podcast on Twitter/X: https://x.com/theFORTpodcast Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/thefortpodcast LinkedIn: https://bit.ly/45gIkFd   Watch The Fort on YouTube: https://bit.ly/3oynxNX Visit our website: https://bit.ly/43SOvys Leave a review on Apple: https://bit.ly/45crFD0 Leave a review on Spotify: https://bit.ly/3Krl9jO  The FORT is produced by Johnny Podcasts

Craig Fuller is the Founder and CEO of FreightWaves, the leading provider of global supply chain market intelligence and news. Prior to FreightWaves, Craig was the founder of TransCard, a major provider of fleet fuel and debit cards. He is also the CEO of FLYING Magazine, the world’s most widely read aviation magazine. Previously, Fuller founded the Xpress Direct division of US Xpress, the leading provider of on-demand expedited truckload services. On this episode, Chris and Craig discuss how the geopolitical landscape impacts supply chains and why we'll never go back to where we were in a post-covid world. They chat USA vs China - and the implications we're likely to experience going forward, the American consumer and supply chains and how technology impacts better and more efficient supply chains. Enjoy! Follow Chris on Twitter: www.Twitter.com/FortWorthChris  Follow Chris on LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/in/chrispowersjr/  Subscribe to The Fort on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCuJ32shRt8Od3MxMY-keTSQ Follow The Fort on Instagram: www.Instagram.com/TheFortPodcast (01:23) - Craig’s Background in Supply Chain & Transportation (04:36) - FreightWaves (08:46) - How would you explain what a supply chain is? (15:42) - What’s happening in the global supply chain right now? (25:05) - Thoughts on China (35:16) - What does China’s activity mean for America long-term? (45:20) - Is there any way we go back to the old relationship with China? (46:32) - What’s the best option for America if we completely pull out of China? (49:40) - Should we expect supply chain issues for the foreseeable future? (51:48) - Do we even have the labor in America if we wanted to bring manufacturing back from China? (55:21) - Predictions For The Future of China (1:00:40) - What’s the most dominant form of supply transportation? (1:01:57) - Why are the ports so congested? (1:06:26) - Is the world going to become more challenging for small businesses as the global supply chain evolves? (1:09:57) - Is what’s happening in China arguably the largest implication in where the world goes? (1:10:41) - What interesting data do you have that is a predictor of where we are today? (1:17:27) - Is it cheaper for a consumer to get a product in person or have it delivered to them? (1:22:02) - The consumer trend favoring experiences over products (1:24:27) - Inflation Predictions (1:26:36) - Is there any breakthrough tech that excites you right now? (1:31:34) - Final Thoughts

Evan Kasper, Founder/CEO of ELK Development, is an established leader in the furnished rental sector. Before starting ELK Development, Evan was the co-founder of the Medici Group, the largest co-living company globally with thousands of units under management. In 2016, he launched Medici Group’s US division and grew it to a $100MM operating business.  On this episode, Chris and Evan dive into the world of co-living real estate. Evan describes the three pillars of co-living: affordability, flexibility, and convenience. Evan also touches on how co-living has been affected by the pandemic, and then Evan breaks down the pros and cons of the three structural practices in this space: master leasing, management partnerships & owner-operators. Enjoy!  Follow Chris on Twitter: www.Twitter.com/FortWorthChris Learn more about Chris Powers and Fort Capital: www.FortCapitalLP.com (01:18) - Evan’s Background (03:47) - Evan’s First Experience in Co-Living Spaces Quarters.com (06:33) - How did you cut a billion dollars of the GSA from the government? Was it easy? (08:19) - How long were you at Medici and when did you leave to start ELK? (09:48) - At Medici, would you master lease a developed building, or would you go into apartments and convert them into co-living spaces? (10:41) - How many buildings were empty and simply ready to be occupied? (12:00) - In general, how do you define co-living? How does that relate to what you’re doing at ELK? (15:04) - Three Pillars of Co-Living: Affordability, Flexibility, Convenience (17:03) - How big is a micro-unit or co-living unit? (18:14) - What are the advantages of owning this kind of real estate as an operator? How would each party make money if they’re separate (owners and operators)? (20:38) - As the operator/owner, are you signing a master lease to yourself to provide this flexibility or is it done lease by lease?  (20:57) - Are you designing these units to be able to furnish them with the demand in each lease? (21:56) - The Difference Between Micro-Units and Co-Living Spaces (22:56) - What's the percentage of people requesting furnished vs not furnished? Has that changed at all through COVID? (24:08) - Are you renting the furniture provided in units or purchasing it? (24:18) - What amenities do you see in co-living that you don’t see in a traditional multifamily community? (27:08) - Is the sharing economy still an amenity in 2020? (29:01) - How are these assets financed? How did the lenders look at it? (32:07) - Why would you be getting less in rent if you’re converting these into bigger units? (54:50) - How do you think about the potential for discrimination lawsuits or fair housing issues as it relates to curating a unit mix? (56:42) - Is there any personality profiling to help see who would be good fits together? (Similar to dorm room housing in college) (57:42) - What are your thoughts on the DC co-living project that doesn’t have locks on bedroom doors to create more trust? (58:37) - What questions should an owner or developer be asking when deciding between a master lease or management agreement? How do you detect their financial strength? (1:00:35) - Are there best practices for converting existing units into co-living? (1:02:15) - Are there any zoning challenges that come up within these conversions? (1:03:32) - Why did you choose the LA market? The Weekly Take Podcast with Spencer levy (1:07:39) - What’s the best advice you’ve ever received? (1:08:24) - Is there a book you would recommend? Principals: Ray Dalio (1:08:54) - If you owned a billboard, what would you put on it? (1:09:56) - How to Contact Evan Evan on LinkedIn Website Email: Info@ElkDevelopment.com The FORT with Chris Powers is produced by Straight Up Podcasts

Edward Pitoniak is the founding Chief Executive Officer of VICI Properties, one of America’s largest real estate investment trusts and the first American REIT to go from IPO to S&P 500 inclusion in less than 5 years. Since its inception in late 2017, VICI has carried out over $30 billion of transactions. VICI is the largest real estate owner on the Las Vegas Strip, the most economically productive street in America, where VICI owns such iconic assets as The Venetian, Caesars Palace Las Vegas, MGM Grand, and Mandalay Bay. VICI also has partnerships with Cabot Destinations, Canyon Ranch, Great Wolf Resorts, and other leading experiential operators.  On this episode, Chris and Ed discuss: - Maximizing the hospitality experience in Vegas - The story of building VICI - Investing in Canyon Ranch - The Inevitable Gaming Future in Texas We'd appreciate you filling out our audience survey, so we can continuously work on providing relevant content to our listeners.  https://www.thefortpod.com/survey Links Vici Ed on LinkedIn Topics (00:00:00) - Intro (00:03:04) - Ed’s career (00:07:42) - How career “obsession” has changed since the 1970’s (00:18:05) - The history of the ski industry (00:28:10) - Maximizing the 24-hour experience of Las Vegas (00:30:35) - Are people craving experience more than ever? (00:35:06) - The Las Vegas Sphere (00:39:33) - Risk-taking  (00:42:06) - VICI (00:47:57) - What makes a great purchase for Vici? (00:51:50) - How did you achieve the highest gross margins of any publicly traded company? (00:54:17) - Who else does what you do? (00:55:36) - Project ShitCo (00:56:48) - Canyon Ranch  (01:04:37) - The Fontainblue Las Vegas (01:06:45) - The impact of influencer marketing on in-person casino experiences (01:09:19) - The future of Texas & Gaming Support our Sponsors Better Pitch: https://bit.ly/42d9L0I Fort Capital: https://bit.ly/FortCapital Follow Fort Capital on LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/company/fort-capital/ Chris on Social Media: Twitter: https://bit.ly/3BYIjcH LinkedIn: https://bit.ly/45gIkFd   Watch The Fort on YouTube: https://bit.ly/3oynxNX Visit our website: https://bit.ly/43SOvys Leave a review on Apple: https://bit.ly/45crFD0 Leave a review on Spotify: https://bit.ly/3Krl9jO  The FORT is produced by Johnny Podcasts

Chris sits down with Jason Fox, former NFL player and founder of Earbuds. They discuss the process of starting a tech company, building an app, life in the NFL and meeting Warren Buffet. Enjoy! For more information on Chris Powers and Fort Capital, visit www.fortcapitallp.com Follow Chris on Twitter: @Fortworthchris Make Contact with The FORT at thefortpodcast@gmail.com 01:51 — Jason’s Background 03:20 — What is Earbuds? When did the idea come to fruition? 09:48 — When can listeners get the app and try it for themselves? 11:23 — Moving His Tech Company out of Fort Worth 15:04 — What is your advice for someone wanting to launch a tech company in Fort Worth? 17:19 — Would you recommend having a team member build the software/app or outsourcing that to a third-party company? 22:06 — When did you think you would launch the app? When are you launching the app? 30:19 — Would you recommend the incubator route to those first entering into the tech world? 33:09 — How do you build a team? 37:12 — What is your favorite interview question? 39:13 — How hard was it to fundraise? What was your experience like? 43:39 — What did you have to offer in your second round that you didn’t have in your first round? 45:10 — Who is the right legal team for you these days? 45:56 — What does a great 2019 look like for Earbuds? 51:14 — What is your role? How do you get all of these deals? 55:22 — True or false — Starting a start-up is like jumping off a cliff and trying to build an airplane before you hit the ground? 58:36 — If you could give advice to your 21-year old self, what would it be? 1:00:55 — What is your favorite app on your phone? 1:01:59 — Is bitcoin going to make it? 1:03:30 — What is the last book that you read? 1:07:29 — If you could meet anybody who would it be?

Travis Heim is the founder and pitmaster of Heim Barbeque, one of the most successful barbeque restaurants in Fort Worth! Heim was also recently voted as having the "Best Ribs in Texas" by Food Network. In this episode, Chris and Travis discuss how Travis discovered his passion for cooking, starting out selling brisket from the trunk of his '99 Civic, the 'Impossible Meat' trend in his industry, opening up a Dallas location and more. Enjoy!  For more information on Chris Powers and Fort Capital, visit www.fortcapitallp.com. Follow Chris on Twitter! @fortworthchris  02:05 — Travis’ Background and The Story of Heim BBQ 03:02 — How did you realize you were great at cooking BBQ? 05:44 — What were your previous jobs before you started Heim? 13:13 — Chris’ First Brisket from Travis in a Dive Bar 14:48 — Travis’ Wife Joins the Team 15:25 — How long did it take to create a full menu beyond brisket? (Ft. The invention of Bacon Burnt Ends) 16:22 — What was the first day of business like? (Selling BBQ out of the back of a ’99 Civic) 20:40 — When did you meet your business partner, Will Churchill? 24:00 — Heim has been incredible at Marketing, especially on social media. Did someone teach you this or how did it come about? (You can follow Travis on Twitter @HeimBBQ) 27:50 — What does a day look like running the food truck? 31:11 — How has your day-to-day changed in the last 5 years? 34:53 — How do you keep your IP a secret, especially with employees leaving? 38:39 — When you opened the truck, were you sourcing the meat you have now? What's the process of selecting the meat you serve? 45:26 — How far in advance do orders need to be placed? 47:22 — What do you think about the ‘Impossible Meat' phenomenon? 48:56 — What trends are you seeing from delivery apps vs. coming into the store? 51:26 — If someone was starting a restaurant, what are some words of wisdom you would have for them? 54:25 — What's the biggest brisket mistake you can make and the easiest way to improve your brisket? 56:36 — Do you have a mentor that has helped you along the way or someone that you haven’t met that you’d love to meet? 59:55 — Do you have a favorite interview question?  The Fort with Chris Powers is produced by Straight Up Podcasts

Nick Clark founded Common Desk in 2012 after leaving a career in office leasing and management. Common Desk has since become a coworking industry leader in design, hospitality, and asset-light deal structures with office landlords. After scaling the brand to 23 locations throughout Texas and North Carolina, WeWork acquired Common Desk at the beginning of 2022. Common Desk as a brand will remain and Nick is still at the helm of the company's continued growth plan. On this episode, Nick shares why they sold to WeWork and what the future of the company will look like, and why Common Desk chooses management agreements with landlords. He deep dives into why the return to office will come back in a major way, what has changed and how flexible office space going from 2% to 25% of the office market. Enjoy!  Learn more about Chris Powers and Fort Capital: www.FortCapitalLP.com Follow Fort Capital on LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/company/fort-capital/ Follow Chris on Twitter: www.Twitter.com/FortWorthChris  Follow Chris on LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/in/chrispowersjr/  Subscribe to The Fort on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCuJ32shRt8Od3MxMY-keTSQ Follow The Fort on Instagram: www.Instagram.com/TheFortPodcast Common Desk Nick Clark on LinkedIn (03:12) - What are you seeing now in the world as we emerge from Covid? (05:20) - How are banks and capital markets reacting to the new trend of shorter-term leases?  (07:57) - The Management Agreement Model (10:07) - Do the rest of the building tenants benefit from the flex-office operation or is it only common desk customers? (12:05) - Do you perform better being located on the first or second floor of a building? (12:36) -Is there data that shows a building performs better when all tenants can participate in common desk amenities? (14:15) - Do you only operate off the management agreement model? (19:35) - What services does Common Desk provide within the space? (20:49) - Are you seeing larger companies coming into Common Desk who really want you take care of the amenity side of work? (24:53) -  What are the key things that make a successful Common Desk location? (29:42) - The Process of Selling Common Desk to WeWork (37:30) - How long does it take to open one location? (38:26) - Do you think the changes in the way we work over the past two years are permanent? (42:18) - Is there anything interesting WeWork is doing behind the scenes they’re really focused on? (44:39) - Does Common Desk only work in an office setting or have you thought about occupying other asset classes? (45:55) - Did you learn anything about business or life grinding through Covid as a leader of a company? (48:47) - Nick’s Belief That Lawns Shouldn’t Exist (51:24) - Nick’s Desire To Buy a Waffle House

We'd appreciate you filling out our audience survey, so we can continuously work on providing relevant content to our listeners.  http://www.thefortpod.com/survey Paul oversees the strategic direction and development of Arcadea across all areas of the firm alongside his partner, Daniel. Paul began his career as a member of the Citigroup Global Analyst program, where he gained exposure to a number of divisions before landing on the high yield and investment grade credit research desk. After Citi, Paul joined Arsenal Growth, a VC & Growth Equity firm in the US with offices in Palo Alto and Orlando. Starting as an Associate and leaving as a Principal, Paul focused on high-growth b2b enterprise software and eCommerce businesses. Paul then joined Constellation Software (“CSI”), where he had a number of executive roles including leading the global investment team of one of CSI’s six operating groups, acting as CEO of a public sector business, and leading a group of businesses in various verticals. On this episode, Chris and Paul discuss: ➡️ Lessons learned from working at Constellation Software ➡️ How they underwrite investment opportunities ➡️ Investing with permanent capital and a long-term horizon ➡️ How Arcadea creates value for their portfolio companies Key Takeaways: (2:55) - Paul’s career and background (6:28) - How was Constellation structured? Why was it 6 operating groups? (8:14) - What’s the benefit of carrying a light corporate office? (10:37) - Thinking in a high-clarity manner (13:19) - Is there anything about your family’s history or your love of classical music that played into your ultimate career in acquiring SAAS companies? (15:15) - How did you end up building Arcadea Group? (17:58) - Does high growth always mean early stage? (19:53) - Have most of these businesses you acquire taken on VC? (24:15) - What is a Vertical SaaS? (26:35) - What can you do differently operationally in VSaas versus other Software services? (27:56) - What is Long-termism and why are you pursuing that route? (32:55) - Do you only offer one injection of cash or do you inject as needed? (36:38) - Who’s making the decision of whether the business needs more capital? (40:16) - Do companies mature to a point where they no longer fit the Arcadea model? (42:11) - What is a quick ‘no’ for you when looking at a company? (44:54) - What happens in the first year of an acquisition? (50:03) - What makes an exceptional operator? (52:32) - How do you make your CEOs think like investors? (54:51) - What are your investors expecting from you as permanent capital? (56:27) - What does it do for your business to have such an accomplished advisor on your board? (59:07) - What happens when a founder or CEO abruptly exits? (1:01:30) - Are you successful because you’ve been in the seat of the CEO and operator? (1:03:22) - What are Kanban and Scrum? Additional Resources 👉 Arcadea Group: https://www.arcadeagroup.com/ 👉 Paul on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/pyancich/ ➡️ Learn more about Xeal: https://xealenergy.com/ ➡️ Fort Capital: www.FortCapitalLP.com ➡️ Follow Fort Capital on LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/company/fort-capital/ ➡️ Follow Chris on Twitter: www.twitter.com/FortWorthChris ➡️ Follow Chris on LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/in/chrispowersjr/ ➡️ Sign Up for our Newsletter: https://newsletter.thefortpod.com/ ➡️ Subscribe to The FORT on YouTube -- The FORT Podcast with Chris Powers is a place where you can find meaningful conversations about entrepreneurship, real estate, investing, and more. Be sure to follow the podcast, so you never miss an episode! The FORT is produced by Johnny Podcasts

This episode features the audio version of Fort Capital's 2020 Annual Letter detailing the decisions we made and the processes we followed throughout an unprecedented year. To read the full-text version, click here.   Follow Chris on Twitter: www.Twitter.com/FortWorthChris Learn more about Chris Powers and Fort Capital: www.FortCapitalLP.com Follow Chris on LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/in/chrispowersjr/ (00:21) - A Year for the Record Books (02:11) - Remaining Focused in 2020 Jim Collin’s - Good to Great (02:47) - Fort Capital’s Flywheel (04:15) - C.O.R. Episode #65 on COR or read about it here. (05:03) - A Focus on Class B Industrial (05:47) - Why We are Focused on Buying and Operating Class B Industrial (08:56) - Strategies for Creating Value Across Our Investments Click here to sign up for our Broker Deal Incentive Program (10:40) - Fort Capital’s Track Record (11:36) - Investors If you’re interested in investing with us or would like to see our more detailed track record, please reach out to investors@fort-companies.com or fill out the ‘I want to invest with Fort Capital’ interest form here. (12:25) - FCP Management For Property Management inquiries, please contact Steve Bailey at sbailey@fort-companies.com (14:08) - A Technology-First Mindset (15:11) - What FOS Does for Our Company (16:11) - Advantages of FOS (17:30) - 2021 Outlook Episode #91 with Spencer Levy of CBRE (20:04) - A Shameless Ask If you know anyone that might have an industrial property to sell, we’d love to meet them. Please get in touch with us here. (20:50) - Get in Touch If you know of someone who would like to invest in industrial real estate across Texas, we’d love to connect with them. They can email investors@fort-companies.com or fill out the ‘I want to invest with Fort’ interest form here. Interested in joining our team? Fill out our two-question survey and submit your resume here. To learn more about our team, check out our portfolio, or read more about how we think. Connect with us on Social Media to stay in the loop on what we’re up to: Follow Chris on Twitter Follow Fort Capital on LinkedIn Subscribe to The FORT Podcast Subscribe to our Quarterly Newsletter

Kevin Dahlstrom, Founder of Swell, joins the podcast for the third time to chat about his career in Fintech and what he's looking to change about how people think about and use money. Chris and Kevin chat about launching Swell, democratizing capital for the 95% of America, and a fun conversation on remote work vs office work. Follow Chris on Twitter: www.Twitter.com/FortWorthChris  Follow Chris on LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/in/chrispowersjr/  Subscribe to The Fort on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCuJ32shRt8Od3MxMY-keTSQ Follow The Fort on Instagram: www.Instagram.com/TheFortPodcast Follow Kevin on Twitter (03:08) - Catching up with Kevin: Launching Swell (07:57) - Do fintechs approach banks to partner with or do banks spin up these fintech companies? (09:16) - What is Swell and why now? (14:29) - The Core Tenants Of The Product (22:18) - How do the traditional banks make money in non-obvious ways? (24:22) - What does the climate for traditional banks look like in 10 years? Ramp Swell (26:43) - How many people fall under your TAM? (28:38) - How Affordable Credit Brings Countries Out of Poverty (30:28) - Why does the average American have a poor credit score? (31:46) - The Democratization of Capital Fundrise (38:37) - Building Community  (40:58) - How do people get on the waitlist? SwellMoney.com (41:37) - Chris & Kevin’s Big Announcement Hot Topics: (45:19) - Remote work  (59:44) - Globalization & Moving knowledge workers overseas The Sovereign Individual by James Davidson (1:03:31) - Final thoughts  The Fort is produced by Johnny Podcasts

Moses Kagan is the Co-Founder and Head of Adaptive Realty, a Los Angeles-based development, and property management group. Since 2018, Moses has overseen the repositioning of 80 properties in Los Angeles and grown Adaptive from $0 to $110M of property under management. Moses joins Chris for his third appearance on The FORT Podcast. In this two-part episode, they discuss the decision to not deploy a fund he raised in early 2020 and his new core strategy. They also explore rent control vs non-rent control. How he talks to his family about wealth and potentially taking over his business, learnings from ReConvene, and where we go from here.... Follow Chris on Twitter: www.Twitter.com/FortWorthChris Learn more about Chris Powers and Fort Capital: www.FortCapitalLP.com Follow Chris on LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/in/chrispowersjr/ Follow Fort Capital on LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/company/fort-capital/ (02:31) - A Discussion on Rent Control (09:25) - Defining Moses’ New Buying Strategy (20:36) -  How have you thought about growing your business over the next decade?  (26:32) - How are you thinking about leaving the businesses to your kids? What if they don’t want to go into it? (35:50) - Thoughts on Growing Third Party Property Management  (38:38) - Is there anything keeping you up at night?  (42:13) - The Slowing Rate of Development (46:01) - Our Collective Tolerance for Emergency (48:28) - If I gave you $1B to put to work by the end of the year where would it go? The Fort is produced by Johnny Peterson & Straight Up Podcasts.

 We'd appreciate you filling out our audience survey, so we can continuously work on providing relevant content to our listeners.  https://www.thefortpod.com/survey Moses Kagan is co-founder and partner at Adaptive Realty, a Los Angeles-based real estate development and property management company with $200MM in AUM and more than 1,000 apartments under management. He is also a co-founder of Re-convene, a real estate private equity un-conference, and ReSeed, which provides mentorship and capital to early-career operators. Rhett leads ReSeed's strategic direction and daily operations. He most recently served as Co-Managing Partner at Minot Capital, LP, where he led real estate investing. Previously, Rhett was President and Director of Research at Stillwater, a long-short hedge fund, and Chief Investment Officer at Arlington Family Offices. Rhett received a Bachelor of Arts from Brown University with a double major in Business Economics and History. On this episode, Chris, Moses and Rhett discuss: ➡️ How ReSeed works ➡️ What ReSeed is looking for in Partners ➡️ How ReSeed empowers Operators to build their own companies ➡️ What success looks like for Operators working with ReSeed ➡️ Thoughts on the state of the Real Estate Market Chapters (00:03:31) - Rhett’s career (00:04:26) - Moses’ evolution in thinking over the past 5 year (00:06:40) - Launching ReSeed Partners (00:19:05) - Defining Subinstitutional (00:20:58) - Cohort #1 (00:34:18) - The ReSeed Partner Track (00:39:35) - Is this a renovation strategy or is there any ground-up involved? (00:40:22) - What does a partnership with y’all look like in the first year? (00:43:58) - What markets are you open to? (0048:28) - How would you determine a successful year for an operator? (00:53:44) - How does the partnership work? What does someone get from y’all and what do they give up? (01:00:20) - Do partners have the opportunity to exit? (01:01:45) - Holding assets for the long term (01:04:40) - Autonomy for the operator (01:07:18) - Is there anything that is off-limits? (01:08:41) - Moses’ playbook (01:11:16) - How are you capitalizing this? (01:17:15) - How many people can be in one market before it's saturated? (01:17:57) - Other members of ReSeed (01:19:04) - Guaranteeing loans (01:22:11) - What are the couple of things people spend the majority of their time on? (01:25:39) - Is there a minimum size deal? (01:27:06) - What can this business look like 10 years from now? (01:29:06) - Thoughts on the current market Additional Resources 👉 ReSeed Partners 👉 Moses on Twitter 👉 Rhett on LinkedIn ➡️ Learn more about BetterPitch ➡️ Fort Capital: www.FortCapitalLP.com ➡️ Follow Fort Capital on LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/company/fort-capital/ ➡️ Follow Chris on Twitter: www.twitter.com/FortWorthChris ➡️ Follow Chris on LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/in/chrispowersjr/ ➡️ Sign Up for our Newsletter: https://newsletter.thefortpod.com/ ➡️ Subscribe to The FORT on YouTube -- The FORT Podcast with Chris Powers is a place where you can find meaningful conversations about entrepreneurship, real estate, investing, and more. Be sure to follow the podcast, so you never miss an episode! The FORT is produced by Johnny Podcasts

Sean Dalfen is the President and Chief Executive Officer of Dalfen Industrial and leads the firm’s investment committees and management committees across its platforms. Under Sean’s leadership, Dalfen Industrial’s portfolio has grown to over 50 million square feet of industrial properties from coast to coast, making it one of the nation’s largest owners and developers of industrial real estate and a leader in the last-mile sector. Over his career, Sean has transacted on in excess of $10 billion On this episode, Chris and Sean discuss: - A deep dive on the state of construction - Predictions for the DFW market - Robotics implementation in industrial spaces - Industrial Outdoor Storage We'd appreciate you filling out our audience survey, so we can continuously work on providing relevant content to our listeners.  https://www.thefortpod.com/survey Links Sean's first appearance on The Fort Dalfen Industrial Topics (00:00:00) Intro (00:04:25) Selling stocks in May 2022 (00:07:11) The state of construction (00:14:46) How are you thinking about the next 3 years? (00:21:36) Leasing (00:31:43) Predictions for DFW (00:39:18) Robotics implementation in industrial spaces (00:43:34) Categorizing leasing activity (00:45:49) Lending (00:49:42) Industrial outdoor storage (00:55:28) The evolving supply chain (00:57:45) Thoughts on Amazon (01:01:05) Supply vs. demand (01:04:01) What needs to be in place right now for you to jump on a deal? Support our Sponsors Juniper Square: https://bit.ly/45yiYUq Better Pitch: https://bit.ly/42d9L0I Fort Capital: https://bit.ly/FortCapital Follow Fort Capital on LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/company/fort-capital/ Chris on Social Media: Twitter: https://bit.ly/3BYIjcH LinkedIn: https://bit.ly/45gIkFd   Watch The Fort on YouTube: https://bit.ly/3oynxNX Visit our website: https://bit.ly/43SOvys Leave a review on Apple: https://bit.ly/45crFD0 Leave a review on Spotify: https://bit.ly/3Krl9jO  The FORT is produced by Johnny Podcasts

Brom Rector, Founder, and GP of Empath Ventures. Prior to founding Empath, Brom spent 7 years as a portfolio manager and quantitative researcher - most recently managing a global macro portfolio for Crabel Capital Management - a Los Angeles-based hedge fund with $8B AUM. After leaving Crabel in 2020, Brom started The Integration Conversation, a long-form video podcast that covers the psychedelics industry from an investing perspective. The research that went into this podcast and the connections it established laid the groundwork for what would become Empath Ventures. On this episode, Brom gives a breakdown on the breakdown of the Psychedelic industry and landscape. They discuss why Brom raised a fund to target psychedelics and how he's investing the money and why it's one of the largest opportunities in the world. Listen to hear Brom’s thoughts on what the next 10 years of psychedelics might look like and much more! Follow Chris on Twitter: www.Twitter.com/FortWorthChris  Follow Chris on LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/in/chrispowersjr/  Subscribe to The Fort on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCuJ32shRt8Od3MxMY-keTSQ Follow The Fort on Instagram: www.Instagram.com/TheFortPodcast (01:56) - Brom’s Background and Career in Psychedelics Empath ventures (07:22) - Why have psychedelics been illegal and shunned from society? (11:28) - What’s Big Pharma’s role in this? (12:49) - What is the chemical reaction happening inside the body when one takes psychedelics? (14:38) - Are all psychedelics man-made or are there any occurring in nature? (16:03) - How far back do psychedelics go in human history? (17:20) - How big is this industry from an economic standpoint? Data on funding trends in psychedelics:  https://www.cbinsights.com/research/psychedelic-therapies-funding-startups/ (20:09) - How do we define what is legal and illegal in the psychedelic space? (22:16) - Does FDA approval make it legal or does there need to be a law passed? (22:54) - What needs to happen for the FDA to change their minds on psychedelics after all these years? (24:16) - Would these drugs displace other opiate treatments? (25:25) - The Hype Around Psychedelics in Society (26:42) - What parts of the industry interest you the most? (28:52) - Thoughts on Micro-Dosing (30:14) - Advancements in ways to “stop” the trip (31:31) - Brom’s Personal Experiences with Psychedelics Compass Pathway studies (33:48) - Integration Therapy (34:59) - Do you do any pre-planning or set intentions for psychedelic experiences? (37:29) - Empath’s intentionalities: Receptor Targets, Indications, and Time to Market (41:04) - What does an early-stage psychedelic company look like? (42:26) - What becomes the IP in these companies? (44:07) - Compass Pathways  Freedom Bioscience Partners (45:43) - The Different Experiences from Different Psychedelics (47:25) - Data on effects of psychedelics on minors (49:12) - At what point is testing introduced on humans for new psychedelic molecules? (51:07) - What’s going to happen in this space over the next decade? Wavepaths music (56:30) - Is there any merit in psychedelics as a preventative? (1:00:07) - What’s happened to the brain of people who become depressed? (1:02:01) - What do you predict to be the first mainstream psychedelics? (1:03:25) - How is Oregon doing since decriminalizing drugs? (1:04:01) - How can people track the progress of clinical trials and legislation? (1:04:43) - Wrap Up & Contact Brom on Twitter Empath Ventures The Integration Conversation podcast The Fort is produced by Johnny Podcasts

Chris sits down with Joe Du Bey, Founder and CEO of Eden, a management solutions company based in San Francisco. They discuss the process of raising capital, finding investors, the life of a start-up CEO and more. They also discuss mentorship, learning, their favorite podcasts and social media. You can see more about Joe and Eden at www.eden.io Follow Chris on Twitter: @Fortworthchris    For more information on Chris Powers and Fort Capital, visit www.fortcapitallp.com Make contact with The FORT: thefortpodcast@gmail.com 7:02 - How did you meet your co-founder 9:24- How does someone without a tech background find a great engineer 11:00-  What did YC do for you 18:14 - what did you decide to do with your first round of investment 19:18- smart marketing with a start up 21:30- How much has OKR helped you 22:57- How do Vc encourage growth 25:11- Whats the best advice you’ve received from one of your investors 26:28- Being the CEO of a startup 31:46- Determining the best metrics 32:33- The notion that you don’t need to be in SF to start a tech company 35:06- The perfect customer for Eden 37:27- Biggest problems people face in their office 40:53- The future of Eden 44:27- Joe’s experience raising capital 46:45- What does a good VC do for a startup 50:23- Pressures in the start up world 52:00 Mentorship, learning, podcasting, social media and life balance

Growing up in Wichita Falls, Texas, Donald Zale watched his father, a Russian Jewish immigrant from an orthodox family, turn a small jewelry store into the Zale Corporation. Don worked alongside his father in the jewelry store and assumed the role of chairman of the board in 1980. In addition to being a successful businessman, Don and his wife, Barbara, became known as a philanthropist, using their wealth to help build hospitals, fund scholarships and aid the homeless. Don works chiefly on his family’s foundation, which funds community services and programs involving health, education, and Jewish heritage across several states.\\ On this episode, Chris and Don discuss: The founding story of Zales and growing up in the family business The diamond industry Managing shareholders within the family alongside external shareholders Zale's hostile takeover and being pushed out Life lessons for listeners We'd appreciate you filling out our audience survey, so we can continuously work on providing relevant content to our listeners.  https://www.thefortpod.com/survey Topics (00:02:28) The founding of Zales (00:13:38) The power of relationships (00:15:13) The biggest changes from the 40s to today (00;16:52) Don’s relationship with his father and experiences growing up in the business (00:24:38) When did the business really start to take off?  (00:29:47) The shift to focusing on Diamonds (00:37:21) How do you think about marketing? (00:39:27) Lessons learned growing up in a family business (00:42:32) Managing shareholders within the family as well as external shareholders (00:43:41) Don on Zale’s hostile takeover (01:03:38) The potential in the diamond industry (01:06:59) Life lessons for listeners Support our Sponsors Fort Capital: https://bit.ly/FortCapital Follow Fort Capital on LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/company/fort-capital/ Chris on Social Media: Twitter: https://bit.ly/3BYIjcH LinkedIn: https://bit.ly/45gIkFd   Watch The Fort on YouTube: https://bit.ly/3oynxNX Visit our website: https://bit.ly/43SOvys Leave a review on Apple: https://bit.ly/45crFD0 Leave a review on Spotify: https://bit.ly/3Krl9jO  The FORT is produced by Johnny Podcasts

Edward Bogel is the Co-Founder of Davidson Bogel, a boutique land investment advisory group and brokerage firm. The company’s base principal is exceptional client service with investment and development of land throughout Texas and Oklahoma. They discuss the journey of founding a company, what makes a great land broker, and the future of development in the DFW area. Enjoy! For more information on Chris Powers and Fort Capital, visit www.fortcapitallp.com. Follow Chris on Twitter! @fortworthchris Connect with The FORT by emailing us at thefortpodcast@gmail.com. 01:30 – Life Before Davidson Bogel 04:00 – Did you decide to focus on land, instead of building on the land? 07:40 – How long did it take you to actually start the business from when you decided you wanted to do it? What was the first year of business like? 12:00 – If someone wanted to become a broker, what would you tell them to keep in mind? 13:00 – How do you train people who want to be in the business? 17:25 – What are the most important aspects for buyers and sellers to think about when transacting? 19:26 – The Process of Working a Deal 24:34 – What are the main reasons deals fall apart? 25:39 – Do you see things continuing to expand in Dallas/Fort Worth or will there be more turnover of urban sites? 27:44 – Do urban developers look at things differently than others? 28:56 – What are the characteristics of a great developer? 30:48 – The Future of Parking and Development in Dallas/Fort Worth 33:29 – The Trend of Single-Family Rentals 36:26 – How do you consume information? 39:03 – How can cities speed things up for land development projects? 47:28 – What is the best advice you have ever received? What is your favorite interview question?

Wyatt is the founder and CEO of UpSmith, a technology company on a mission to combat America’s skilled worker crisis.  UpSmith partners with employers to identify high-demand gaps in their labor force, then sources and screens candidates to fill them. Where necessary, UpSmith connects candidates with affordable, fast, high-quality training to qualify them for placement. Prior to UpSmith, Wyatt led business development for Elevate, Uber’s aerial ride-sharing business unit. He served as a consultant with McKinsey & Company and as a corps member with Teach for America, receiving the 2013 Sue Lehmann Award as a national teacher of the year. Wyatt holds an MBA with Distinction from Harvard Business School and a BS in Human & Organizational Development and Political Science from Vanderbilt University, where he served as student body president and as a young alumni trustee on the Board of Trust. On this episode, Chris and Wyatt discuss: An in-depth view of the emerging blue-collar labor crisis in America and how we got here. The benefits of blue-collar work and why it is worthwhile work.  Upsmith’s plan to employ more blue-collar workers. Why college isn’t for everyone. Learn more about Chris Powers and Fort Capital: www.FortCapitalLP.com Follow Fort Capital on LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/company/fort-capital/ Follow Chris on Twitter: www.Twitter.com/FortWorthChris  Follow Chris on LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/in/chrispowersjr/  Subscribe to The Fort on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCuJ32shRt8Od3MxMY-keTSQ Follow The Fort on Instagram: www.Instagram.com/TheFortPodcast (2:43) - What is the labor crisis we are facing right now? (7:40) - Was there an inflection point where we changed the way we look at the trades? (9:02) - Is this labor crisis attributed equally across all blue-collar work? (10:40) - Are we losing people in the trades due to a lack of training from small businesses? (15:33) - Why is it not obvious that people should look into the trades for a viable career? (18:39) - Does the federal government offer financial aid to attend a trade school? (19:55) - How much of this is a laziness problem? UpSmith (21:25) - Wyatt’s launch of UpSmith (24:27) - How are you pitching high school students to have them consider this vs. College? (34:04) - What are the implications for the families of those who choose to enter the trades? (37:30) - Why are you attracted to the words ‘dignity’ and ‘purpose’? (39:57) - Renaming Blue Collar as “The Builder Class” (41:10) - What takes place in the initial 8 weeks of a cohort? (44:13) - What problem is a company having that drives them to UpSmith for candidates? (47:40) - What’s the line when it comes to blue-collar work and candidates with criminal records? (50:30) - Other than pay, what are some non-obvious benefits of a career in trades? (53:40) - Is the path for people to eventually own their own business or just have a steady income? (57:50) Is anyone on social media making this work sexy? @BuildersOfInsta Mike Rowe's Dirty Jobs The Make It Movement (1:00:48) - Are city crews looking to UpSmith for help with public infrastructure? (1:01:16) - What does our world look like if we fail to fill these blue-collar positions? HBR Future of Work Initiative (1:05:24) - Where have all these workers gone since Covid? The Mom Project (1:08:41) - Is there a certain characteristic that stands out in high-performers in the trades? (1:09:47) - Where do you envision UpSmith in 5 years? (1:11:40) - What are employers in home health care looking for from UpSmith candidates? (1:13:22) - What’s one thing you've never predicted since you started this business? (1:14:46) - How can people get in touch or partner with you? Forge NOW The Fort is produced by Johnny Podcasts

Krish is the Founder and CEO of Angry Gods, a strategy and creative consultancy. He has been involved in some of the most iconic brand stories of the past two decades, including the launch of the iMac, the resurrection of Adidas Originals, the explosion of Vitaminwater, American Express, and the rebrand of Virgin Galactic.  As a partner at Culture, a next-generation venture incubator, Krish helps the world’s most popular influencers and personalities build efficient business empires from their passion and reach.  Krish recently co-founded Alter, where they believe the coaching, health innovations, and technology available only to professional athletes and the 1% should be accessible to all. We'd appreciate you filling out our audience survey, so we can continuously work on providing relevant content to our listeners.  https://www.thefortpod.com/survey Topics (00:00:00) - Intro (00:03:39) - What is a brand? (00:08:22) - What happens in our brains when we react to a brand? (00:15:34) - Influencer marketing fragility (00:17:21) - Where do people get branding wrong? (00:21:14) - Who should weigh in on brand design? (00:25:18) - The 1-9-90 concept (00:28:37) - Elon vs. Buffet (00:31:30) - CEO Branding + Mark Zuckerberg (00:38:08) - What does working with you look like? (00:42:26) - Everything is solvable (00:44:27) - Where does the most waste happen in the process? (00:45:59) - AI (00:47:21) - The Gift Registry (00:51:27) - Vitamin Water (00:53:05) - Amazon (00:54:26) - Rebranding Mr. Cooper (00:59:13) - Familiar is Failure (01:01:16) - Revelations, not observations (01:05:23) - actions, not ads Links Krish on X - https://x.com/krishmenon Angry Gods - https://www.angrygods.com/ Naming Norman on Chat GPT Wisdm on IG - https://www.instagram.com/wisdm/ Zachirific on TikTok - https://www.tiktok.com/@zachirific Support our Sponsors Fort: https://bit.ly/FortCompanies Follow Fort on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/fort-companies/ Chris on Social Media: The Fort Podcast on Twitter/X: https://x.com/theFORTpodcast Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/thefortpodcast LinkedIn: https://bit.ly/45gIkFd   Watch The Fort on YouTube: https://bit.ly/3oynxNX Visit our website: https://bit.ly/43SOvys Leave a review on Apple: https://bit.ly/45crFD0 Leave a review on Spotify: https://bit.ly/3Krl9jO  The FORT is produced by Johnny Podcasts

Alex Bridgeman is the host of Think Like an Owner, a podcast focused on how the most ambitious CEOs grow great companies. He started the podcast in 2018 while still in college, and the show has led to exciting opportunities like becoming Chief of Staff at HW Media in March 2022 which evolved into a Director of Data Strategy role at Altos Research, a data company acquired by HW Media in December 2022.  Alex has a deep passion for content and data and how each can propel a creator into amazing opportunities they wouldn't have otherwise had.  On this episode, Chris and Alex discuss: - The immense benefits of Podcasting - Alex's Chief of Staff role - The content customer acquisition flywheel - The world of Data Businesses Topics: (00:00:00) Intro (00:01:38) “If you want to buy a business, don’t start a search fund, start a podcast.” (00:08:22) The Impact of Think Like an Owner (00:12:22) The Chief of Staff role (00:24:33) The content customer acquisition flywheel (00:28:56) What are the structures of data companies? (00:33:26) Are we living in a world where everything we do is creating data for someone else? (00:37:08) Does AI impact the data world? (00:38:43) What would it look like to buy a data business? (00:43:19) Would you implement a content flywheel if you owned a data company? (00:45:17) How would you grow a data business? (00:46:55) What fascinates you about the sales side of data business? (00:51:24) Alex’s Chicken Theory Support our Sponsors Relay Human Cloud: https://bit.ly/3sjQcaY Fort Capital: https://bit.ly/FortCapital Follow Fort Capital on LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/company/fort-capital/ Links: Think Like an Owner Podcast - https://tlaopodcast.com/ Alex on Twitter - https://twitter.com/aebridgeman Chenmark weekly newsletter - https://chenmark.com/weekly-thoughts/ HW Media - https://www.hwmedia.com/ Craig Fuller on TLAO - https://tlaopodcast.com/podcasts/craig-fuller-acquiring-flying-magazine-and-building-a-media-playbook/ Craig Fuller on The Fort - https://www.thefortpod.com/212-craig-fuller-founder-of-freightwaves-an-absolute-masterclass-on-global-supply-chain-transportation/ Smith Travel Research - https://str.com/ The economics of data businesses - https://pivotal.substack.com/p/economics-of-data-biz SafeGraph - https://www.safegraph.com/ World of DaaS Podcast - https://www.safegraph.com/podcasts Altos Research - https://www.altosresearch.com/ Chris on Social Media: Twitter: https://bit.ly/3BYIjcH LinkedIn: https://bit.ly/45gIkFd Watch The Fort on YouTube: https://bit.ly/3oynxNX Visit our website: https://bit.ly/43SOvys Leave a review on Apple: https://bit.ly/45crFD0 Leave a review on Spotify: https://bit.ly/3Krl9jO

James Hill is the Chief Strategy Officer / Fort Worth Market President at Access Bank. He has 12+ years of expert banking experience, specializing in commercial and real estate lending. Born and raised in Fort Worth, Texas, James is a graduate of the Business Honors Program at the University of Texas at Austin as well as TCU, receiving his MBA in the Accelerated Program. He is currently adjunct faculty in the finance department of the business school at TCU and was elected to the Tarrant Regional Water District Board in May 2017.  On this episode of The FORT, James and Chris dive deep into the world of banking, lending, and the importance of having a great relationship with your banker. Chris also touches on how the pandemic brought him to James for an in-depth "Banking 101" class in order to be as informed as possible when navigating the future. They also answer some questions from Twitter! Enjoy.  For more information on Chris Powers & Fort Capital, visit www.FortCapitalLP.com Follow Chris on Twitter 02:26 — James’ Background  03:53 — Not Being the “Prototypical” Banker 05:40 — Relationships Are Important During COVID 07:13 — How do you view your relationship with borrowers and how should borrowers think about their relationships with their bank?  10:25 — How do banks set their reserve methodology? 12:30 — If a loan is going into default, are the banks the first to lose out but also make interest? 13:11 — How does the bank approach a potentially bad situation? 15:59 - What happens when you have a good relationship with a bank but you're about to be in a default situation? 21:02 — If a bank has a lot of bad loans on its balance sheet, does that affect its ability to borrow from the Federal Government? 21:44 — If you have personal recourse on a loan, and the delta was not met, how do they figure out how it's paid out over time? 23:55 —   How do non-recourse loans work? 28:28 —  Should I move everything over to one bank or should I use multiple banks? 29:33 — When were you notified about the idea of PPP, what did the process of implementing it into your daily life look like as a banker? 32:36 — Question from Twitter for James: “To what extent does the reputation of the borrower matter? 34:37 — What are the 'C’s' in your credit program?  35:14 — What might change in banking coming out of the crisis? 36:57 — What does it mean for a bank to be more well-capitalized now vs. during the ’08 crash? 38:24 — Foreclosure Protocols Across Different States 40:34 — Pinpointing Value In This Climate 42:05 — If I have a loan maturing in the next 4-5 months, how does one evaluate whether to extend their loan? 48:21 — Given the current environment, when are banks suggesting is a good time to buy again? 50:55 — How do you start a bank and how much liquidity do you need to get one up and running? 53:07 — Where is the banking industry headed over the next decade? The FORT with Chris Powers is produced by Straight Up Podcasts

Barry Davis is the CEO of EnLink Midstream, one of the largest midstream energy companies in the United States. On this episode, he and Chris discuss an emphasis on hard work and relationships in business, the state of oil & gas in 2020, the Better Man organization, as well as the importance of faith in business leadership. Enjoy!  Follow Chris on Twitter: www.Twitter.com/FortWorthChris Learn more about Chris Powers & Fort Capital: www.FortCapitallp.com (02:17) - Barry’s Story (05:14) - How did that early emphasis on hard work and relationships influence your teen years and intro into the business world? (06:22) - How did you go from being a landman to starting your first company? (09:09) - Was there a certain opportunity or experience that made you to take the leap? (10:01) - How would you describe the Midstream business in 2020? (11:08) - What was the outside capital environment? What did the first day in the office look like? (12:32) -  Can you paint a picture of where the company is today? (14:10) - What’s life like as a private CEO vs. a public CEO? (16:25) - Do things like strategy and vision evolve when you go from 50 employees to 1,000+? (17:48) - What's the state of oil & gas today and is this different from cycles in the past? (22:09) - What are the businesses that will survive COVID doing right now? (23:26) - How do you view ESG? (Environmental, Social & Corporate Governance) (25:54) - How Chris and Barry Met and the Significance of this Episode (26:59) - How did thinking about a balanced life and doing things differently from others in business captivate you? (29:25) - How are you able to incorporate faith with business leadership? (32:04) - Are there certain things someone in their 30's can do that will set them up for their 2nd half of life? (34:18) - What is the Better Man organization? (37:52) - What is biblical manhood vs. how manhood is defined by today’s culture? (39:16) - What’s the experience like in the curriculum? (40:54) - When did you get involved with the Halftime Institute and how has it impacted you? (43:17) - How do you plan on spending the 2nd half of your life? (44:38) - Do you have a morning routine? (45:41) - What does ‘do the right thing and you’ll always be able to go back to where you’ve been’ mean? (47:06) - What’s a book you’ve read that has had an impact on you? The Bible Halftime by Bob Beuford 7 Habits of Highly Effective People - Stephen Covey Every Good Endeavor by Tim Keller (48:53) - If you had a billboard that you could put anything on for the world to see, what would you put? The FORT with Chris Powers is produced by Straight Up Podcasts

Born and raised in South Philadelphia to a single mother, Ayesha is now a multi-millionaire in Stock, Real Estate, and as a Franchise Business Owner. As an Economic Activist, she encourages everyone to invest their money in themselves and their neighborhoods. On this episode, Ayesha discusses her upbringing and how she was able to escape poverty through Real Estate, and her goals of helping others do the same. She and Chris discuss her RE philosophy, how she manages her assets, the impact of the past 18 months, her #1 message: "Own some shit" and much more. Enjoy! Watch this episode on YouTube: https://youtu.be/z51ByEcm23M Follow Chris on Twitter: www.Twitter.com/FortWorthChris Learn more about Chris Powers and Fort Capital: www.FortCapitalLP.com Follow Chris on LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/in/chrispowersjr/ Follow Fort Capital on LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/company/fort-capital/ (02:17) - Ayesha’s Childhood in South Philadelphia and Career Background (10:19) - Entrepreneurship By Hook or By Crook (11:12) - Trial and Error: Money Management (13:55) - “You gotta own some shit” (16:39) - Thoughts on Gentrification (21:10) - Mud to Millions (24:55) - How did money play a role in the broader community growing up? (29:33) - What do you mean when you say “change your mindset” when talking about money? (35:44) - How Ayesha Built Her RE Portfolio (41:24) - How do you think about cash flow & appreciation? (44:20) - The Social Impact Mindset When Setting Rents (46:22) - Ayesha’s Online RE Deal in LA and Goals in California (52:44) - Ayesha’s Annual Net Worth Review & What’s Next (59:38) -  Thoughts on NIMBYism and Affordable Housing (1:01:34) - What has the last 18 months taught you about the world? (1:06:16) - How can FORT listeners spread the Mud 2 Millions Message? Mud 2 Millions Book Mud2Millions.com (1:06:54) - Do you have a morning routine? (1:07:31) - What’s the best advice you’ve ever been given? (1:08:06) - If you had a billboard for the world to see, what would you put? (1:08:22) - How can people find you? Twitter: www.Twitter.com/AyeshaSelden Instagram: www.Instagram.com/AyeshaSelden The FORT is produced by Johnny Peterson & Straight Up Podcasts

Welcome to the first episode in our newest series for The FORT: Lessons in Business (LIB). Our first LIB will cover communicating effectively in Investor Reporting. People love good news, and they're willing to hear bad news, but they hate surprises. Enjoy!  If you have any topic you would like us to cover in future LIBs, please tweet them at Chris or email him at thefortpodcast@gmail.com Follow Chris on Twitter: www.Twitter.com/FortWorthChris Learn more about Chris Powers and Fort Capital: www.FortCapitalLP.com Follow Chris on LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/in/chrispowersjr/ Follow Fort Capital on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/fort-capital The FORT with Chris Powers is produced by Straight Up Podcasts

Chris is joined by his business partner and Fort Capital CEO Jason Baxter to celebrate the 300th episode of the Podcast. On this episode, Chris and Jason answer listener-submitted questions regarding: How to build a successful partnership How Fort Capital is navigating the real estate economy Implementing technology and artificial intelligence in a business We'd appreciate you filling out our audience survey, so we can continuously work on providing relevant content to our listeners.  https://www.thefortpod.com/survey Links Ego is the enemy by Ryan Holiday Good to Great by Jim Collins Fort Ep.180 - GP Fees and The Pathway to Building a World-Class REPE Operating Platform Jeremy Giffon on Invest like the Best Topics (00:04:13) Reflecting on 300 episodes (00:06:22) Jason and Chris deep dive and answer questions about partnerships (00:46:44) Answering questions about Fort Capital (01:14:10) How Fort Capital is incorporating Artificial Intelligence Support our Sponsors RE Cost Seg: https://bit.ly/3oC7JcY Better Pitch: https://bit.ly/42d9L0I Fort Capital: https://bit.ly/FortCapital Follow Fort Capital on LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/company/fort-capital/   Chris on Social Media: Twitter: https://bit.ly/3BYIjcH LinkedIn: https://bit.ly/45gIkFd   Watch The Fort on YouTube: https://bit.ly/3oynxNX Visit our website: https://bit.ly/43SOvys Leave a review on Apple: https://bit.ly/45crFD0 Leave a review on Spotify: https://bit.ly/3Krl9jO  The FORT is produced by Johnny Podcasts

Austin Rief is the Co-Founder & COO of Morning Brew, one of the largest business newsletters with over 2.5 million subscribers.  On this episode, Austin and Chris discuss the journey to founding Morning Brew, how they were able to rapidly acquire subscribers, the process of being acquired by Business Insider, and how they develop content for their readers. They also discuss the current state of decentralization, the future of news and media consumption, BitClout, Austin's rolling fund, and more. Enjoy! Follow Chris on Twitter: www.Twitter.com/FortWorthChris Learn more about Chris Powers and Fort Capital: www.FortCapitalLP.com Follow Chris on LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/in/chrispowersjr/ Follow Austin on Twitter: https://twitter.com/austin_rief (02:53) - Austin’s Background and What Led Him to Start Morning Brew (04:26) - What was it about Market Corner that caught your eye? (05:15) - What did you do to add value when you joined there? (06:01) - Was there a moment in time where you decided investment banking was not the route for you? (07:29) - When did you know that this had the potential to be a full-time business? (09:41) - What was your pitch to investors? (10:25) - How did you determine what content was important in the early days? Waitbutwhy.com  (12:49) - What did you do with your capital?  (14:40) - What was the most effective way to get subscribers for you and is it still the best way today? (18:15) - Do you have any data as to how much of each newsletter your subscribers consume on each edition? (19:32) - How have you thought about your sub-brews? (21:40) - How do you know the content is staying at the same quality as you get more removed from the daily writing? (23:07) - How do you hire great content writers? (24:03) - How does the relationship between you and Alex help drive the business today? (24:58) - How did the acquisition from Business Insider come about? (25:56) - How long did the deal take from start to finish? (26:35) - Was there ever a moment where you were mentally committed to selling the business and knew there was no going back?  (27:52) - Did the acquisition change anything about your operation strategy? (29:38) - Who were the hirers that were key in taking you to the next level? (33:02) - Are you fully remote or will you become office-centric as we come out of the pandemic? (38:30) - How do you think about delivering the truth and not just click-bait? (44:09) - Have you experienced people coming to MB from these legacy media companies? (44:57) - What’s your thesis on social capital transferring into financial capital? (49:05) - What do you think about the de-centralization of the world with things like crypto and BitClout? (51:45) - Do you think we’re headed toward government regulation as we see people like Elon being able to sway markets with a single tweet? (53:33) - Was the removal of Donald Trump from the Internet a pivotal moment in this new world of decentralization? (55:04) - What is the solution when you can’t actually get on the internet after being ‘removed’ at an AWS level? (57:36) - Has anyone ever tried to cancel MB for something that was written? (58:30) - How does your rolling fund work and how can people learn more about it? (1:01:03) - Do you have a childhood experience that shaped who you are today? (1:02:22) - Is there something that’s weighing heavily on your mind that a lot of other people aren’t thinking about? (1:07:52) - What’s the best way for people to reach you? Austin on Twitter The FORT with Chris Powers is produced by Straight Up Podcasts

We'd appreciate you filling out our audience survey, so we can continuously work on providing relevant content to our listeners.  https://www.thefortpod.com/survey Joe Pohlen is the Founder and Partner of Cardinal Senior Management, an assisted living company operating facilities in Michigan and Pennsylvania. This is Joe's second appearance on The Fort, if you'd like to hear round 1, you can do so here. On this episode, Chris and Joe discuss: ➡️ Family dynamics and American culture towards how we treat our elders ➡️ Why assisted living has been in decline since 2017 ➡️ Joe's ideas to improve assisted living long term ➡️ Discussion on the current market and what he expects in the next few years ➡️ Cardinal's recent sale and how they'll structure the company differently going forward Additional Resources 👉 Live Cardinal 👉 Joe on Twitter ➡️ Go here to save $500 on your Re-Convene Tickets! ➡️ Fort Capital: www.FortCapitalLP.com ➡️ Follow Fort Capital on LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/company/fort-capital/ ➡️ Follow Chris on Twitter: www.twitter.com/FortWorthChris ➡️ Follow Chris on LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/in/chrispowersjr/ ➡️ Sign Up for our Newsletter: https://newsletter.thefortpod.com/ ➡️ Subscribe to The FORT on YouTube Timestamps (00:04:54) Why is there a decline in care quality within Assisted Living? (00:07:04) Why is the government trying to push people out of Nursing homes? (00:09:46) Why is it so much harder for elderly people to be obese? (00:11:16) Joe’s first day in Assisted Living - Showering the elderly (00:18:45) Why are we seeing fewer people entering the industry? (00:23:06) What can the everyday citizen person do to help our elderly population? (00:26:58) How are your planning on leveraging Cardinal to radically change Assisted Living? (00:46:16) How would you structure a long-term hold? (00:52:50) Are there any national brands in this industry? (00:54:03) How much scale do you need to justify a back-office? (00:58:34) How would you begin to attack expenses and operational issues in the day-to-day? (00:59:50) What happens when a tenant can’t pay rent? (01:00:42) Are there any state or federal support options to help residents? (01:01:46) Are there ways to design buildings in a more efficient way? (01:03:20) Are people waiting longer to move into Assisted living? (01:03:58) Are there any lingering effects of Covid? (01:05:16) Why are you only in PA and MI? (01:06:00) Are there any states you wouldn’t go into? (01:08:45) Who is the ideal investor for Cardinal? -- The FORT Podcast with Chris Powers is a place where you can find meaningful conversations about entrepreneurship, real estate, investing, and more. Be sure to follow the podcast, so you never miss an episode! The FORT is produced by Johnny Podcasts

Michael Girdley (www.Twitter.com/Girdley) is a serial entrepreneur and investor based in San Antonio. He is the chairman and co-founder of Dura Software, owner of Codeup, Toro Coffee, Alamo Fireworks, and the tech-venture fund Geekdom.  On this episode, Chris and Michael discuss Michael's experience moving to San Francisco during the late '90s and what it was like in the 'tech bubble', and then leaving the tech world to take over his father's firework business where technology was almost non-existent. Michael discusses the process of helping found and scale his various companies and implementing executive teams so he can step away from their day to day operations.  They also dive into the workings of Michael's various companies, the pitch for the future of San Antonio, and much more. Enjoy!  Follow Chris on Twitter: www.Twitter.com/FortWorthChris Learn more about Chris Powers & Fort Capital: www.FortCapitalLP.com (02:30) - Michael’s Background and What Led Him to Today (04:00) - What is cryptography? (04:35) - How did you get into your passion for computer technology? (06:11) - When did you move out to the Bay Area? (06:30) - What was Silicon Valley before the Dotcom bust? What was it like going through that bust? (08:12) - Did people see the crash coming or did it come out of nowhere? (09:55) - Was revenue actually growing when the stock price jumped or was it all part of just the bubble? (11:28) - Were most of these businesses VC-backed before they went public? (12:02) - What was the culture shift like going from Silicon Valley to running a family firework business? (13:57) - What was the transition like when taking the business over from your father? (16:03) - Did you already have an executive team in place or was that a process to implement before you transitioned out? (16:46) - What was the process like of finding a CEO? (17:43) - How do you set up a compensation system to incentivize those who aren’t the owners in a family business? (19:28) - How does the current CEO communicate business strategy with you? (20:43) - What are you accountable for as a semi-active owner? (29:52) - How do you find the right people to bring into the business? (31:11) - What were your roles in getting the business off the ground if you weren’t going to be involved in the day-to-day? (34:08) - Is this a business that will require funding to scale quickly or do you want to go the self-funded route? (35:08) - What is Codeup? (36:24) - How do you define ‘not getting a job’ in terms of Codeup’s policy to refund the student? (38:23) - What’s the process of education in Codeup? (39:23) - How long is the process and how much does it cost? (40:02) - Is it a full-time job or can students work while they’re in the courses? (40:36) - Is there always going to be a need for code in a world where no-code is a growing movement? (41:53) - What is Dura Software? (43:44) - Is this similar to a Berkshire model? (44:50) - What’s the difference between vertical and horizontal market software? (46:15) - Are you designing the third phase of your career where you can keep adding businesses or is there a limit? (47:02) - What does Culture Index mean to you? How has it impacted your career? (49:14) - Do you require the companies you buy to adopt Culture Index? (52:05) - What’s your 2-minute pitch for the city of San Antonio? (53:45) - How has the growth of Austin impacted San Antonio? (54:59) - Do you have a morning routine? (55:43) - What’s the best advice you’ve ever received? (56:38) - If you owned a billboard and could put anything on it, what would it be? (59:24) - How can people get in touch with you? Follow Michael on Twitter: www.Twitter.com/Girdley Learn more about Michael Girdley here www.Girdley.com The FORT with Chris Powers is produced by Straight Up Podcasts

As CEO of Midway, Jonathan Brinsden guides the overall business strategy and operations which have led to the company’s creation of a $2B portfolio of core mixed-use assets. On this episode, Jonathan and Chris talk about Jonathan's journey up to joining Midway, they discuss the Houston market as it navigates the COVID crisis, where retail and hospitality will go in the future, and Jonathan's experience with ULI and the Midway Foundation. Enjoy! Follow Chris on Twitter: www.Twitter.com/FortWorthChris Learn more about Chris Powers & Fort Capital: www.FortCapitalLP.com (02:50) - Jonathan’s Background and Journey to Midway (06:54) - Can you describe how the Town & Country Village deal came about and what the last 15 years of working on that project have been like? (10:29) - What was the draw to this property back in 2004? (12:12) - When you bought it, did you have to force the tenants out or let their leases run dry? (14:00) - How do you arrive at a 'final plan’ with a deal that big?  (17:11) - Where do you stand today with Town & Country Village? (17:51) - How do you program the experiential factor of your properties? (20:55) - What makes an amenity have longevity? (22:34) - How is Houston holding up in a post-COVID world? (24:03) - Is Houston as dependent on oil and gas today as it was 20 years ago? (24:54) - Is it ultimately a good thing for developers that the city of Houston doesn’t have a lot of zoning Laws? (26:37) - What are you seeing in retail now and how has it progressed since March? (28:56) - The Hospitality Side of Retail (30:08) - Are tenants out in the market or is everything just dead? (31:18)  - Is there anything you’re seeing in lease proposals that you hadn’t seen before? (32:36) - Are Houston office tenants going back? Is there permanent damage to office usage with the realization of WFH? (38:09) - Is there anything in terms of new technology that will make things safer for the next few years? (39:55) - Will you be aggressively looking to acquire if the opportunity presents itself? (41:57) - What's the state of new development for retail and hospitality projects? (42:52) - Are your developments public/private or just private? (45:35) - In a public/private partnership, which side is the first to approach a project and present to the other side for consideration? (49:00) - Do you have any opinion on the rising property taxes in TX? (51:05) - What has ULI meant to you and why do you think it’s important? (53:41) - What’s the Midway Foundation? (57:48) - Do you have a morning routine? (59:43) - What's the best advice you’ve ever been given? (1:02:25) - If you could put any message on a billboard, what would it be? The FORT with Chris Powers is produced by Straight Up Podcasts

Bo Aughtry, Chairman & CEO of Windsor Aughtry Commercial, entered the real estate business out of college and in 1975 helped found Small and Aughtry, a real estate development and brokerage firm. In 1980, Bo established The Aughtry Company, a commercial real estate development and brokerage firm, and Aughtry Securities Corporation, an NASD Broker/Dealer, serving as president of both. In 1988 the companies merged with Windsor Properties, Inc., then a Greenville-based home-building firm, thereby forming Windsor/Aughtry Company, Inc. On this episode, Bo discusses lessons learned through many economic cycles and Short Term Rentals as a competitor. Chris and Bo also chat about how WAC develops hotels - selecting markets, sites, construction, and partnering with hotel brands. Enjoy! Learn more about Chris Powers and Fort Capital: www.FortCapitalLP.com Follow Fort Capital on LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/company/fort-capital/ Follow Chris on Twitter: www.Twitter.com/FortWorthChris  Follow Chris on LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/in/chrispowersjr/  Subscribe to The Fort on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCuJ32shRt8Od3MxMY-keTSQ Follow The Fort on Instagram: www.Instagram.com/TheFortPodcast   (02:03) - Bo’s Background and Career in Real Estate (05:41) - Bo’s Experience During the OPEC Oil Embargo (10:40) - When you think back on the cycles you’ve experienced, could you sense them or did they come unexpectedly? (13:33) - What are the chain of events that happen during an unraveling? (17:54) - Are you sensing anything right now? Psychology of money by Morgan Housel (25:13) - When the interest rates went to 21.5% prime, how long did they stay that high and what happened during that period? (28:46) - How did you get into hotel development? (32:03) - How do you select sites when developing a hotel? (35:43) - Who is your average guests when building in a college town? (39:12) - Do you try to sign contracts with universities? (40:57) - How do you select the brand of hotel? (42:28) - What’s the differentiation of risk between you and the hotel brand? (44:58) - Do you have to follow the specs of the hotel brand or do they give you freedom of design? (47:11) - What’s an affinity program? (47:53) - Who purchases the furniture for the hotel? (50:47) - What does Hilton provide to you beyond a booking system and marketing? (52:08) - Thoughts on Construction  (56:43) - Thoughts on AirBnb & STR’s (1:03:29) - Why do you pursue heads-up deals and what matters to you in partnerships? (1:09:39) - If you could go back and tell your 35 year-old self some wisdom, what would it be?

Chris Bakke is the co-founder and CEO of Laskie. Previously, he was the co-founder of Interviewed (acquired by Indeed), COO of 42Floors (acquired by Knotel), and managed business development for Zillow and RentJuice (acquired by Zillow). On this episode, Chris discusses his experiences selling his companies and then working for the acquirers such as Zillow and Indeed during the pandemic. He also discusses the growth of the freelancer economy and how companies are starting to think about their approach to full-time employees vs. contract workers. Finally, they talk about founding Laskie, Twitter and the founders-dilemma of deciding whether to sell when an offer comes by or continuing to build. Enjoy! (02:18) - Chris’ Background Working for Early Stage and Public Tech Companies (04:42) - What was it like working at Indeed in the midst of the pandemic? (07:47) - What is it like to transition from a founder of a company to being an employee after an acquisition? (10:09) - When you take on the new role do you know what’s required of you from the jump, or is it expected your role might change? (13:01) - Are there questions that you wish you asked in previous acquisitions to understand what it will be like on the other side? (15:13) - How did the idea for Laskie come about? How do you describe what y’all do? (19:02) - How long does it take to get approved as a vendor? (21:14) - How many times do companies hire full time people when a freelancer would do just fine? Are we entering a world where companies cut down on full time people in exchange for more freelancers? (24:31) - How do you overcome the issue of freelancer loyalty between competitors? (28:23) - Personality Testing in Freelancing (30:40) - Should hirers think about the idea of 1-3 days of working on a project with a potential employee before deciding to hire them? (36:04) - Has there been anything unique in this COVID era in terms of requested services you’ve seen? (39:18) - Chris’ Experience Working With the Same Group of Founders for All of His Companies (40:10) - Are the roles of the group pretty clear each time you start a company together? (45:31) - Was there someone who told you to stop doing founder-led sales and bring someone on or was it something you had to figure out? (47:07) - What is “the game” of being a venture-backed company? (50:19) - Was your goal to be the next billion-dollar company or did you know you wanted in and out in two years? (53:22) - Do you think there’s a lot of companies that should have sold much earlier but keep pushing for that $10B sale? (56:42) - What did it do to your psyche when you saw that first offer from a founder's perspective? (1:01:45) - Why are you bullish on San Francisco/Silicon Valley? (1:05:47) - If you were CEO of Twitter for the next year, what would you do? (1:09:17) - Do you have a childhood experience that put you on your life path? (1:12:20) - If you had a billboard on the busiest highway in Danville, what would it say? (1:23:43) - How can people reach you? Twitter: www.Twitter.com/ChrisJBakke LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/in/bakk3/

Chris sits down with Brandom Gengelbach, Executive Vice President of the Fort Worth Chamber of Commerce. They discuss what chambers do, how they help businesses, what he sees for the city of Fort Worth as well as cities around the country. Enjoy! Connect with The FORT by emailing us at thefortpodcast@gmail.com For more information on Chris Powers and Fort Capital, visit www.fortcapitallp.com  Follow Chris on twitter! @fortworthchris 2:06 - What do you do at the Chamber? 2:35 - what are businesses asking for today thats changed? 5:35 - how do cities differentiate in terms of what they can offer? 7:55 - What do people love about Fort Worth when visitng for the first time? 10:15 - whats the process of a company making a deal with the city 13:27 - What did the Amazon HQ 2 deal teach chambers around the country?  16:11- Did Amazon help you learn more about the city and did Amazon bring more attention to these cities? 21:51 - Why do suburban cities have the ability to make these “better” offers than larger cities 29:03 - Is city growth dependent on bringing in large established businesses or growing internally existing businesses in the city?  32:15- for small businesses, when is it the right time to go to the city chamber for the next move? 34:28 - What is Fort worth doing to be progressive in furthering economic development?

On this episode, Fort Capital CEO Chris Powers outlines the underwriting process on industrial deals from start to finish making it simple to understand whether you’re green or a seasoned veteran. This episode will provide an outline for how these deals get done and the mistakes that a lot of people make along the way so you can deal smarter in the future.  Enjoy!  For more on Underwriting, visit the Fort Capital website here.  Follow Chris on Twitter: www.Twitter.com/FortWorthChris Learn more about Chris Powers & Fort Capital: www.FortCapitallp.com (01:07) - What is Underwriting? (02:14) - Variables that Contribute to the Value in Underwriting (02:40) - Market, Demographic and their Respective Trends (03:50) - Purchase Price (04:15) - Expenses (05:04) - Modeling Expenses Out in a 5-Year Model (05:21) - Taxes & Insurance (06:15) - Tenants (07:03) - Where Rent is Today vs. the Market Rate (07:59) - Tenant Renewal Probability (09:55) - Current Vacancies (10:42) - Capital Expenditure Requirements (11:44) - Tenant Improvement Costs (12:26) - Underwriting the Capital Structure & Refinance Scenarios (13:49) - What does an exit scenario look like? (15:15) - Things People Miss and Mistakes We’ve Missed Along the Way (18:45) - How Fort Capital Thinks About the Process of Doing a Deal (19:59) - How Long the Underwriting Process Should Take (20:42) - Where We Get Most of Our Data (21:12) - Where does information live when underwriting? How is it communicated to the team & non-team? (22:58) - Final Thoughts on Underwriting (23:58) - Writing an Investment Memo (25:10) - What We Think about Presenting in Our Memos (26:12) - Reasons to Acquire (26:38) - Location Overview (27:09) - The Property Itself (27:35) - Tenant Overview (28:10) - Sources and Uses of Funds (29:02) - Financial Summary & What Investors Can Expect in Return (30:22) - Partnership Terms (31:48) - Models & Return Summary (32:17) - Property Photos & Market Map (33:02) - Conclusion & Free Resources from Fort Capital The FORT with Chris Powers is produced by Straight up Podcasts

Matt Lasky serves as Managing Partner and Senior Vice President of Equity Velocity Funds. He has advised clients nationally on over 1.3 million square feet of retail, mixed-use, and medical property since 2011. At Equity, he leads a team whose focus is on providing customized analytics and financial solutions to market strategy and capital markets clients nationally. The team brings deep experience in both multi-unit rollouts and acquisition/disposition work. In today's episode, he and Chris discuss lender attitudes during the COVID-19 pandemic, Matt's perspective on working as a principal owner in the medical real estate world, and much more. Enjoy!   For more information on Chris Powers and Fort Capital, visit www.FortCapitalLP.com Follow Chris on Twitter! @FortWorthChris  01:18 — Matt’s Background and His Career Up to This Point 04:41 — What was it about healthcare that intrigued you and brought you to Equity? 05:32 — What is it like focusing on both the service side and principal owner side of the business? 10:34 — How does a deal in this space come together? 13:10 — Is your fund a generalist fund or does each have its own mandate? 16:20 — What are you seeing on the front lines of Retail that you can share? 19:04 — Are lenders changing their attitudes during this COVID-19 crisis vs. the ’08 crash? 20:24 — Are there any best practices for handling rent relief? 23:55 — What is the difference between borrowing from CMBS vs. borrowing from a bank? 26:05 — Is there anything that's been permanently damaging for retailers? 28:33 — What worries you going forward after COVID-19? 32:30 — Are insurers paying receivables quicker to close the gap? 33:09 — Did you go into this pandemic with anything under contract? Has anything with these contracts changed due to COVID-19? 36:03 — Is Equity on pause with acquisitions? What’s would your plan be if a deal presented itself right now? 39:27 — Where do you see the rest of 2020 and 2021 going? When do we get back to ‘normal’? 42:17 — Are you seeing any leasing activity or has it halted? 45:12 — Do you see retail rents taking a huge hit w/ social distancing or will a new player come in and take advantage of it? 47:54 — Is there anything interesting you suspect we might see 18 months from now?   The FORT is produced by Straight Up Podcasts 

Bryan Perkins joins Chris for his second appearance on The FORT Podcast. Bryan is the CEO of Novaria Group, a manufacturer in the aerospace industry that makes parts for airlines and government defense groups—an industry that has clearly been hit hardest by COVID-19. Bryan is offering great insight into how Novaria has responded, the landscape his industry finds itself in right now, Bryan's recent sale to KKR, the future of M&A in the airline industry, the Boeing situation, and more. Enjoy! For more information on Chris Powers and Fort Capital, visit www.fortcapitallp.com. Follow Chris on Twitter @FortWorthChris 01:46 — How has COVID-19 impacted your world and your industry? 03:55 — How does this impact compare to the impact of 9/11? 04:33 — How does this impact an airline? 06:44 — What has the transformation been in new aircraft transactions? 09:24 — Have you seen any declines in the defense industry? 11:26 — What have you seen, in terms of making new parts, over the last 30 days? 13:48 — Selling the Business to KKR 16:16 — How did you pick a banker to lead the charge on the deal? 18:00 — With KKR as a partner, is this situation more strategic and agile? 22:24 — What does KKR provide that allows you to obtain more robust data? 24:10 — What is the role of people who are solely finding lean solutions? 26:24 — What will the M&A landscape look like for Novaria as you navigate COVID-19? 31:08 — You were optimistic in ’09, do you have that same outlook now? Are sellers more interested in selling now because of this environment? 33:35 — If I was a seller, how long would it take me to sell my business to Novaria? 34:33 — Is the Boeing 737 MAX issue less impactful because of the current environment? 37:36 — With this paradigm shift in consumer behavior, are people going to figure out that they don’t need to fly as often? 40:44 — What are your thoughts on private aviation? Will it be the last to come back? 43:53 — Do you see an opportunity from this situation that will strengthen the aviation industry? 46:37 — What information does the public need to hear in order to become comfortable flying again? 49:52 — What did you tell everyone after you won the Gilbert W. Speed Award? 51:50 — How have you shifted operations in a manufacturing factory to practice social distancing? 53:21 — How are you, as a leader, communicating with your team throughout this?

On this episode, Stinson Dean (www.Twitter.com/LumberTrading), the Founder of Deacon Lumber, joins Chris to provide a deep dive into the Lumber industry. Stinson explains his role as a Lumber trader, why most homes in the US are built from Canadian Lumber, the tariff issues between the US and Canada, the Lumber supply chain, and why we are seeing the highest prices ever recorded. Enjoy! Follow Chris on Twitter: www.Twitter.com/FortWorthChris Learn more about Chris Powers and Fort Capital: www.FortCapitalLP.com Follow Chris on LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/in/chrispowersjr/ (02:40) - Stinson’s Journey Into Lumber and What He’s Doing Today Deacon Lumber (08:18) - Why are futures under-utilized? (11:44) - How many people are doing what you do in lumber? (12:39) - Why do a lot of people not participate in lumber as opposed to other commodities? (14:43) - Are there government subsidies for lumber? (16:48) - What’s the shelf life of lumber? The Business Model for Lumber (18:11) - Who are you buying from and where are you storing it? West Fraser Saw Mill (22:34) - Where does your business fit in the supply chain? (23:49) - How does the full supply chain work starting with the tree? (34:14) - How long does it take a tree to grow to a point where it can become lumber? (34:54) - Why are lumber prices skyrocketing right now? (40:50) - Is there still COVID caution in the market? (45:21) - Opportunities in an Inefficient Market (46:15) - Who’s making all the money in a market with historically high prices? (49:05) - Blue Stain Lumber (52:33) - Have the tariffs that are in place been the reason for Canadian sawmills buying mills in the US? (54:53) - Why does Lumber grow better in Canada? Are fires more likely in the US? (57:49) - How do most of these forest fires start? (59:32) - Why aren’t mills adding capacity? (1:00:27) - Is there an opportunity for VC to step in and make a giant change in the industry? (1:02:35) - Are you betting lumber prices will go higher or lower? Types of Lumber & Pricing (1:04:38) - What are the main types of lumber being used? (1:06:42) - The quality of Lumber Being Used in Custom Homes vs. Production Homes (1:09:44) - The Price of Multi-Family Lumber vs. Single-Family (1:12:04) - What % of a typical home is comprised of lumber in single vs. multi-family? (1:14:28) - What are some tips for a regional/small home builder to better hedge this risk? (1:19:55) - What’s the current time frame for locking in prices right now? (1:20:30) - How are smaller builders purchasing their lumber? (1:22:19) - Is there any interesting technology being created within the industry? (1:25:50) - What is the biggest risk right now in lumber? (1:27:38) - How is money made or lost in this industry? What are general risks in your part of the industry? (1:36:32) - Do you have a childhood experience that shaped who you are today? (1:40:00) - What’s the best advice you’ve ever been given? (1:40:27) - What’s your favorite book?  King of Capital by David Carey (1:42:55) - How can people reach you? The FORT with Chris Powers is produced by Straight Up Podcasts

Will Churchill is the Owner of Frank Kent Motor Company.  Frank Kent Cadillac has been awarded GM Dealer of the Year for 2012 – 2014, an honor given to only the top 2% of GM dealers throughout the country. On this episode, Chris and Will discuss: A deep dive on the auto industry. The current state of the auto industry. What the future of buying cars looks like. DTC, EV cars, Hydrogen?! And more! Support our Sponsors: Frank Kent Cadillac CRE Daily Newsletter  Fort Capital  More Info: Follow Fort Capital on LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/company/fort-capital/ Follow Chris on Twitter: www.Twitter.com/FortWorthChris  Follow Chris on LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/in/chrispowersjr/  Subscribe to The Fort on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCuJ32shRt8Od3MxMY-keTSQ Follow The Fort on Instagram: www.Instagram.com/TheFortPodcast Links: The Fort #50 with Will Churchill Email Will: willc@fk1935.com Topics: (3:18) - Introducing Will (4:51) - Will’s background in the auto business (7:06) - What’s happened in auto over the past two years? (11:16) - Where are we now with the chip shortage? (13:10) - Thoughts on pricing strategies in the industry (17:53) - Where do people get auto loans from? (20:18) - Is there anything that changed through Covid that will be permanent? (22:37) - Moving the car buying experience online (27:43) - Thoughts on Carvana  (31:36) - Focusing on the Wholesale market (34:45) - What do most people do when they’re owing way more than the car is worth? (36:25) - What warranty do people really need? (41:23) - At what point can a car not get a warranty? (42:58) - Why is there a need for car dealerships in the future? (44:41) - Why doesn’t Tesla’s model work for everyone else? (47:03) - Will the Car Dealership look the way it does now in 10 years? (48:50) - What happens if Wall Street moves to a profitability model? (50:23) - Buick’s buyout of their dealers (51:39) - Who dictates investing in a dealership? (53:31) - The process of opening a new dealership (56:33) - What’s the pathway to becoming a dealer? (1:02:25) - Thoughts on the EV revolution (1:08:12) - What happens to the new cars that got wrecked from the recent hurricane in Florida? (1:10:09) - Where do cars go to die? (1:11:29) - Do you see the industry moving to cars-as-a-service rather than traditional ownership model? (1:12:52) - How are auto loans performing right now? (1:13:35) - How many catalytic converters have been stolen from you and are manufacturers looking to fix this? (1:14:33) - How’s the auction market looking right now? (1:15:16) - What’s the single most impactful thing a dealer can do to improve the car buying experience? (1:17:13) - How has ride-share impacted the auto world? (1:18:43)  - Final thoughts The Fort is produced by Johnny Podcasts

Hiten Samtani is the founder and editorial director of ten31, a new media company focused on market-moving insider coverage of the most important and least understood industries. He is the author of The Promote, a newsletter that readers have likened to commercial real estate's answer to Matt Levine's "Money Stuff," and a publication that has built the most highly engaged audience in B2B media (open rate: 70%). Hiten founded ten31 after a decade at The Real Deal, where he ran the newsroom and shepherded coverage of the most important stories in real estate. Chris and Hiten get into the early days of the brand, what inspired it, and why the real estate world needed a publication that’s bold, sharp, and unapologetically honest. They talk about the stories that hit hardest, what makes for a good scoop, and how Hiten has built trust with sources while keeping the content unfiltered and highly readable. They also cover: Why commercial real estate is full of big personalities and even bigger stakes How operators and investors can actually get covered by the media What it’s like growing a niche media company from scratch Lessons from Hiten’s years at The Real Deal and why he walked away Navigating the gray areas of journalism—anonymity, accuracy, and when to publish Links: Hiten on X The Promote CRE newsletter The Promote Podcast A specialist playbook on how to get ink for your deal or company Understanding the different modes of talking to the press Key industry storylines for 2025 Support our Sponsors: Vesto - https://www.vesto.com/fort Better Pitch - https://betterpitch.com/ Topics: (00:00:00) - Intro (00:05:33) - Hiten’s journey into real estate journalism (00:08:24) - Lesson from working at the Real Deal (00:12:39) - Who is the audience? (00:16:28) - Is your style of journalism unique to real estate? (00:19:40) - What it took to launch ten31 Media (00:27:55) - Where do you get inspiration, and how do you get access to the information you can get? (00:35:32) - HFCs (00:39:03) - How do you determine what is truth and what isn’t? (00:48:42) - How can CRE companies get press? (00:55:40) - On the record vs. off the record (00:59:12) - CRE themes of 2024 and what to look for in 2025 (01:04:19) - Attending a Jewish circumcision ceremony in a NYC boardroom Chris on Social Media: The Fort Podcast on Twitter/X: https://x.com/theFORTpodcast Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/thefortpodcast LinkedIn: https://bit.ly/45gIkFd   Watch The Fort on YouTube: https://bit.ly/3oynxNX Visit our website: https://bit.ly/43SOvys Leave a review on Apple: https://bit.ly/45crFD0 Leave a review on Spotify: https://bit.ly/3Krl9jO  The FORT is produced by Johnny Podcasts

Twitter Anon "The Wolf of Franchises" aka @franchisewolf on Twitter, is an expert in the franchise industry. The Wolf of Franchises is a franchise industry professional who has helped match top franchise brands with competent owners and operators and source emerging franchisors for investment opportunities. The Wolf is currently building a media organization via Workweek; an Austin-based media startup focused on empowering individual creators. Through The Wolf's newsletter, podcast, and website, he aims to be the most trusted and transparent (as well as entertaining) resource for information on franchises. On this episode, Chris and Wolf discuss: An in-depth analysis of how franchising works What makes a great franchise business How to create a franchise Years of lessons learned from the franchise industry Follow Chris on Twitter: www.Twitter.com/FortWorthChris  Follow Chris on LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/in/chrispowersjr/  Subscribe to The Fort on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCuJ32shRt8Od3MxMY-keTSQ Follow The Fort on Instagram: www.Instagram.com/TheFortPodcast Wolf of Franchises on Twitter WolfOfFranchises.com WorkWeek Franchise Empires Podcast - On Apple - On Spotify Spaulding Decon American Family Care The Joint In N Out on Expanding East of Texas Sun Holdings The Flynn Group (1:13) - Building an anonymous Twitter account (4:19) - How are you building a business around your Twitter account? (6:27) - What is a franchise? (9:03)- How does a business owner convert their model to a franchise? (11:19) - Is there a certain level of stores you need to have before a franchise makes sense? (12:29) - How long does it take to put the business on paper that’s ready to franchise? (13:26)  - What big questions should franchisees be thinking about as they go through the process? (16:20) - Are a lot of the people applying to be franchisee’s first-time operators? (21:05) - How would you structure a franchise deal? (24:13) - Is it upon the franchisor to determine the size of an operator’s territory? (25:43) - The Subway Franchise Model (27:43) -How do Franchisors vet potential franchisees? (30:46) - Is there any data on the franchisee being a passive owner vs. working in the business? (33:46)- How do you typically finance a new franchise? (35:40) - How do you do due diligence on a franchisor? (38:30) - How long is the typical franchise agreement? (39:47) - What does the agreement look like when a franchisee approaches a franchisor with a buyer for their locations? (44:23) - What franchises do you love if you were going to go buy a franchise? (50:59) - Are there any tips for finding the right location for a customer-facing franchise? (52:30) -What would you stay away from? (55:08) - What’s the craziest business you’ve seen become a franchise? (55:58) - What’s the best healthcare franchise? (57:53) - Does Real Estate play into someone’s decision to get into franchising? (59:34) - How does an operator get a franchise into a new state? (1:02:37) - Why wouldn’t franchises with cult followings like In-N-Out be in every state? (1:04:16) - Is the nightmare scenario a Franchisee is doing really well but a Franchisor is screwing it up? (1:08:46) - What’s the best way to buy out a franchisee? (1:10:34) - Who’s the largest franchisee in the country? The Fort is produced by Johnny Podcasts

 We'd appreciate you filling out our audience survey, so we can continuously work on providing relevant content to our listeners.  https://www.thefortpod.com/survey John Andrew is a Thiel Fellow, recipient of the Forbes 30 Under 30 award and he was recently named to Business Insider’s Rising Stars of Real Estate. He started his first internet company at age 13, and at age 17 he co-founded Coder.com (“Coder”) - a platform that moves the development environment (where software engineers write code) to an organization’s cloud infrastructure. Coder is backed by Redpoint, GGV, Founders Fund, and Bessemer, with large enterprise customers such as Goldman Sachs and Palantir. After co-founding and running Coder as CEO for six years, he stepped down in 2021 and began his next venture, Wander.com which enjoys the support of QED Investments and Redpoint among others. On this episode, Chris & John discuss: ➡️ Starting his first business at 13 and eventually becoming a Thiel Fellow ➡️ How Wander works and what they're looking to accomplish going forward ➡️ Wander's STR REIT and how the capital markets work in STR ➡️ What travel and hospitality will look like in 10 years Chapters (00:02:40) - John’s upbringing and early career (00:07:02) - The impact John’s father had on him (00:10:56) - The experience of being a Thiel Fellow (00:15:22) - John’s skillset as a Founder (00:19:36) - Wander (00:27:41) - Are you able to capitalize this with Debt? (00:30:05) - What is a great yield on a well-performing STR? (00:30:31) - What makes a great home for Wander? (00:34:28) - How are your homes outfitted to make them stand out? (00:37:52) - How do you work with vendors? (00:40:31) - What are some member benefits? (00:43:48) - What needs to die off in this industry? (00:47:19) - What does the typical customer look like? (00:49:44) - Is there room in your market for hotel-sized homes? (00:51:56) - Do you ever worry about zoning or STR regulations? (00:55:32) - Is there concentration risk? (00:57:39) - How would one value a business like Wander? (01:02:04) - Where will you be in 5 years? (01:07:24) - Where is your favorite Wander? Additional Resources 👉 Follow John on Twitter 👉 Wander 👉 Thiel Fellowship 👉 Bandon Beach, OR ➡️ Fort Capital: www.FortCapitalLP.com ➡️ Follow Fort Capital on LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/company/fort-capital/ ➡️ Follow Chris on Twitter: www.twitter.com/FortWorthChris ➡️ Follow Chris on LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/in/chrispowersjr/ ➡️ Sign Up for our Newsletter: https://newsletter.thefortpod.com/ ➡️ Subscribe to The FORT on YouTube -- The FORT Podcast with Chris Powers is a place where you can find meaningful conversations about entrepreneurship, real estate, investing, and more. Be sure to follow the podcast, so you never miss an episode! The FORT is produced by Johnny Podcasts

Nick Farris has an extensive background in consulting and market analysis for health care real estate and senior living assets. He has functioned in advisory roles nationally with hundreds of developers, hospitals, health systems, healthcare REITs, and medical operators since 2006.  On this episode, Nick and Chris deep dive into Health Care Real Estate and how MedCore works with physicians to locate areas to develop medical facilities across the country. They also discuss Nick's work developing Senior living campuses, how they first met in college, what's next for the boomer generation, and more. Enjoy! Follow Chris on Twitter: www.Twitter.com/FortWorthChris Learn more about Chris Powers and Fort Capital: www.FortCapitalLP.com Follow Chris on LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/in/chrispowersjr/ Nick on Twitter: (03:15) - Chris and Nick Meeting in College (07:04) - Nick’s Career Path After College Leading up to Today (14:16) - What’s the spectrum of Health Care as it relates to what you do? (19:16) - Where are you gathering all of the data for physicians? (23:44) - What’s the lead time between folks approaching you and when they need to find a place? (25:46) - Are physicians coming to you with a broad brush in mind or specific locations they want to set up a practice? (30:27) - What room is there for a physician in markets where there’s virtually no insurance coverage? (32:37) - What’s an orthopedic surgeon looking for? (35:02) - Data Availability Via Insurance Providers (35:56) - Are you involved in an ortho’s search for finding physicians to work with in an area they want to go to? (39:00) - What are the big drivers for how facilities are built? (41:30) - What is a client in for when they come to you to build a facility? (44:43) - Are physicians signing leases or joining the ownership group? (45:54) - How does the organization make money? (47:14) - How would a deal go south? (48:15) - Scarcity of Medical Facilities vs. Other Types of Real Estate Leasers (49:08) - What’s considered Elective Surgery? (52:22) - What’s a co-morbidity? (54:24) - Senior Housing (1:00:11) - How big are these campuses? (1:01:54) - How do you raise capital? (1:05:28) - What amenities are you adding to these campuses? (1:07:19) - Are memberships covered by insurance or private pay? (1:07:41) - Is the fact that people are living longer good for your business? (1:09:03) - What’s your reason and process for acquisitions? (1:10:16) - Does the government offer loans for financing in this area? (1:10:47) - What’s the next 10 years look like for the boomer generation? (1:14:22) - Do you have a childhood experience that has shaped who you have become? (1:19:34) - Do you have a morning routine? (1:21:46) - What’s the best advice you’ve been given? The FORT with Chris Powers is produced by Straight Up Podcasts

On this special bonus episode, Chris is joined once again by Kevin Dahlstrom (Episode #131 of FORT) for a role-reversal interview. Chris talks about his current career transition and how the past 2 years have lead him to his decision regarding his role at Fort Capital. Kevin and Chris also discuss creating space to think, being multi-dimensional, Twitter and more. Enjoy! Follow Chris on Twitter: www.Twitter.com/FortWorthChris Learn more about Chris Powers and Fort Capital: www.FortCapitalLP.com Follow Chris on LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/in/chrispowersjr/ (01:14) - Chris’ Current Career Transition (10:39) - Do you think of yourself as a ‘Zero to One’ person? (15:15) - Chris’ “Oh, sh*t!” Moment at the Beginning of COVID (19:31) - Was there a specific moment that was the catalyst for making your career change? (24:08) - The Enneagram Test (26:42) - How are you thinking about what’s next for you in life? (32:17) - Creating Space to Just Think (34:09) - Being Multi-Dimensional as a Key to Happiness (36:47) - “Stacking the Pancakes” (40:51) - The Time-Billionaire (41:40) - Chris’ Experience with Twitter (51:55) - Chris’ Habits and Routines  (56:45) - The Letter Writing Exercise (58:34) - Building in Public: Chris and Kevin’s upcoming Brainstorming Trip (1:03:36) - What’s one thing you’re looking forward to? (1:06:53) - Wrap Up and Final Thoughts The FORT with Chris Powers is produced by Straight Up Podcasts

We'd appreciate you filling out our audience survey, so we can continuously work on providing relevant content to our listeners. Responses received by 05/11/23 will be entered in a drawing for $500 cash. http://www.thefortpod.com/survey EPISODE #267 In today’s episode, Chris is joined by Collin McLelland, co-founder of Digital Wildcatters, a community of energy professionals who are changing the way that we think about energy. After leaving high school, Collin knew that he wanted to be an entrepreneur and decided to learn about the oil and gas industry. He worked on roughnecking oil rigs in West Texas. Collin spent the next 10 years working on every major oilfield across the country, from Alaska all the way down to the Gulf of Mexico. In 2018, Collin decided that millennial engineers needed a new way to think about oil and gas, and realizing that there was no way for people to get more information about the industry, and started The Oil and Gas Podcast.  Just before the pandemic in 2020, Collin decided to go full-time on Digital Wildcatters, which tries to educate society and raise their awareness of the energy industry. Today, Collin speaks with Chris about his views on different energy types, why Bitcoin mining is actually good for the environment, and how he thinks about building a community. Key Takeaways: Intro (00:00) Collin’s background (02:55) What Digital Wildcatters is trying to achieve (05:49) Why do oil and gas have such a bad reputation? (12:20) The US energy policy (19:01) What’s interesting about geothermal energy (36:50)  The impact of bitcoin mining around the world (40:23) The future of energy (49:43) Are oil and gas the most prolific energy source? (55:06) Additional Resources 👉 Digital Wildcatters: https://digitalwildcatters.com/ 👉 Collin on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/collin-mclelland/ 👉 Collin on Twitter: https://twitter.com/FracSlap 👉 DW Podcasts: https://digitalwildcatters.com/podcasts/ 👉 Collin McLelland on The Convergence of Energy and Bitcoin Mining: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O1ctGsfluRs 👉 Collide by DW: https://appadvice.com/app/collide-by-digital-wildcatters/1569044309 ➡️ Learn more about Relay Human Cloud ➡️ Fort Capital: www.FortCapitalLP.com ➡️ Follow Fort Capital on LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/company/fort-capital/ ➡️ Follow Chris on Twitter: www.twitter.com/FortWorthChris ➡️ Follow Chris on LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/in/chrispowersjr/ ➡️ Sign Up for our Newsletter: https://newsletter.thefortpod.com/ ➡️ Subscribe to The FORT on YouTube -- The FORT Podcast with Chris Powers is a place where you can find meaningful conversations about entrepreneurship, real estate, investing, and more. Be sure to follow the podcast, so you never miss an episode!

On this episode, Chris talks with the anonymous "Real Estate God" (www.Twitter.com/TheRealEstateG6) about how and why he launched his online persona to tweet about Real Estate. They also discuss his experience working in Private Equity in San Francisco, the future of the office, retail, and hotels post-COVID, and the appeal of multi-family as an asset class. Finally, they talk about The System, an online course released by The Real Estate God to help both RE newbies and seasoned veterans attain true wealth through real estate. Enjoy! You can become your own Private Equity firm here with TREG's course: The System - www.gumroad.com/l/trdbw Follow Chris on Twitter: www.Twitter.com/FortWorthChris Learn more about Chris Powers and Fort Capital: www.FortCapitalLP.com Follow Chris on LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/in/chrispowersjr/ (02:06) - The Real Estate God’s Background and How He Got to Where He is Today (02:35) - How did you go about creating your online persona? (03:22) - Can you describe the type of work being done at the PE firm you’re working for? (04:24) - What type of office are you investing in? (05:15) - How do you source deals? (05:49) - Can you describe from your perspective how office, retail, and hotels were affected in 2020 and their future looking forward?  (10:36) - What type of retail do you play in? (11:17) - What’s going on in San Francisco from your perspective? (14:39) - Are you worried about the tech jobs leaving SF due to WFH? (15:25) - Why is the government so restrictive there in regards to office? (17:34) - What’s the leasing activity like in SF right now? (19:08) - Are employees allowed in the offices in SF right now? (19:38) - What’s keeping you in SF? (20:39) - Can you walk us through a recent office deal in this office environment? (22:53) - Can you describe the seller’s mindset in this situation? (23:42) - The Methodology of Underwriting an Office Deal (25:36) - How do you think about mitigating the risk of TI (Tenant Improvement) exposure? (26:46) - Are the capital markets in office starting to open up? (27:24) - Is there any tech or software that’s emerging in office? (27:56) - Can you define Creative Office Building from your point of view? (28:14) - Are the buildings coming with this 'creative' look or are you making a lot of those changes? (29:01) - Why is multi-family an appealing asset class to you? (31:14) - How did your idea for The System come together? How did you go about putting it in motion? (33:36) -  What do the two structures look like if it's an IRR hurdle vs. a Multiple hurdle? Why is Multiple better? (36:24) - Can you summarize your view in your course on how you think someone can turn $50,000 into $1 Million?  (43:06) - How did you go about developing your table of contents for the course? (44:06) - What was the thesis for the course? (45:08) - Have there been any cool testimonials or outcomes from those who have bought your course? (45:40) - Are most of the people buying your course brand new to real estate or is it a seasoned person looking to get more educated? (46:20) - Changing the Future of Education (49:34) - How did you find your mentor? How would you advise listeners on finding someone who can change their life through mentorship? Questions from Twitter: (54:06) - Mindset & Callicrates www.Twitter.com/callicrates_  (55:39) - Do the people you work with know that you’re The Real Estate God? (56:11) - Is there something that’s keeping you from starting your own firm? The FORT with Chris Powers is produced by Straight Up Podcasts

Sarah has 20 years of experience in office brokerage in the DFW region. Prior to founding Thirty-Four Commercial, she was previously a Principal at Peloton Commercial Real Estate (acquired by JLL in 2019) and an Associate at Transwestern. Sarah graduated from Miami University before relocating to Dallas, Texas in 2003. Sarah focuses her life on wellness and balance. In 2018, she obtained a 200-hour Yoga Teacher Training Certification. Sarah enjoys spending time with her husband and children, as well as traveling whenever their schedule allows. On this episode, Chris and Sarah discuss: her career stories and the lessons she learned along the way her view of the current office environment and where we go from here how to lease Class A Office buildings how she leased a Class AA office building from the ground up how she manages a growing family and business Links: Thirty-Four Commercial The Purpose-Driven Life by Rick Warren Topics: (3:21) - Sarah’s career & background (30:11) - What did you learn selling gym memberships that translate to any sales position? (33:01) - What does good training look like for people early in their RE career? (37:53) - How do you build trust with owners? (47:50) - How would you describe the office market today? (59:40) - What’s your process of working in development? (1:01:40) - Where do people waste money in office development? (1:07:53) - How do you approach marketing? (1:11:22) - When are you able to start leasing a building? (1:16:36) - Is there a point where you realize a deal isn’t going to get done? (1:18:43) - What’s your role once a new building is fully leased? (1:20:08) - What needs to happen for a lease to turnover? (1:23:05) - How do you balance building a family and a business?

We'd appreciate you filling out our audience survey, so we can continuously work on providing relevant content to our listeners.  https://www.thefortpod.com/survey Levi Benkert is a proven innovative business leader with 20 years of experience in strategic real estate-related business development. Levi founded Harbor Capital, a private equity firm focused on industrial real estate in Texas. Levi has leveraged his skills to identify unique opportunities, maximize growth, raise capital, and create a lasting vision for companies that he has founded and led. Levi has bought, managed, and developed over $450M in real estate properties in his career. On this episode, Chris & Levi discuss: ➡️ Lessons learned during the 2008/2009 Great Financial Crisis ➡️ Story of moving to Ethiopia to build an orphanage and several businesses ➡️ Why he chose to focus on Class B Industrial throughout Texas ➡️ How Harbor underwrites deals and structures their real deals ➡️ Discussion on current real estate market Learn more about The Fort Podcast by going to https://www.thefortpod.com/ Timestamps (00:04:44) Levi’s career in home building through the GFC (00:22:06) Building an orphanage & 4 different businesses in Ethiopia (00:33:40) Building Harbor Capital with a focus on Class B Industrial (00:36:06) Levi’s focus within Class B Industrial (00:46:21) Doing a deal in Katy, TX that ended up being next to the Tesla Factories (00:52:02) Insights on the Houston & San Antonio markets (00:56:07) “Buy, Refi, Die.” - Long-term holds (00:57:46) Harbor and Fort Capital’s future plans (01:06:36) Harbor’s organizational structure (01:09:30) Twitter Additional Resources 👉 Levi on Twitter 👉 Harbor Capital ➡️ Get $500 off your ticket to Re-Convene! ➡️ Learn more about Juniper Square ➡️ Check out The Distribution by Juniper Square Podcast ➡️ Fort Capital: www.FortCapitalLP.com ➡️ Follow Fort Capital on LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/company/fort-capital/ ➡️ Follow Chris on Twitter: www.twitter.com/FortWorthChris ➡️ Follow Chris on LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/in/chrispowersjr/ ➡️ Sign Up for our Newsletter: https://newsletter.thefortpod.com/ ➡️ Subscribe to The FORT on YouTube -- The FORT Podcast with Chris Powers is a place where you can find meaningful conversations about entrepreneurship, real estate, investing, and more. Be sure to follow the podcast, so you never miss an episode! The FORT is produced by Johnny Podcasts

Chris Weekley is the Executive Vice President at David Weekley Homes, one of the largest privately-held home building firms in the country. On this episode, they discuss the culture at DWH, Weekley's different product types in home building, the challenges and opportunities in home building, markets across the country, what 2020 presented for home builders, and what 2021 looks like. Enjoy! Follow Chris on Twitter: www.Twitter.com/FortWorthChris Learn more about Chris Powers and Fort Capital: www.FortCapitalLP.com Follow Chris on LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/in/chrispowersjr/ Connect with Chris Weekley: www.linkedin.com/in/chris-weekley-892960/ (02:13) - Chris’ Story Acton School of Business | MBA (06:41) - Growing up, was your father’s work/family separation intentional in light of running a family business? (07:36) - How is 'The Life of Meaning Class' at Acton structured? How do they get the answer out of you? (10:05) - Where did you go after you got your MBA? (12:58) - How does David Weekley Homes's approach to team culture allow it to be able to retain talent for so long? (17:15) - What is David Weekley University and how did it come about? (19:43) - What’s the application process to get into DWU? (20:34) - How many markets are you in? How do you think about moving into new markets? (23:19) - Where are the hottest markets in the country right now? (24:52) - What are the 'Encore and Imagination' projects within David Weekley Homes? (26:36) - Do you focus more on central or suburban living for 'Imagination'? (28:33) - For the active adult communities you develop, do they have to be empty nesters or are they able to have kids with them? (29:31) - What are things that the 55+ age people want in a house & community? (31:17) - Are you anticipating a trend of home-offices being built in light of COVID? (32:44) - Are the millennials buying later in life? Are they requiring different things in their builds? (34:44) - How do you think about designing communities and commuting as Uber and self-driving cars continue to become more popular? (37:20) - How do you think about the growing asset class of single-family rental? (40:55) - What are the specific differences between the single-family rentals and what you normally build? (42:22) - How do you raise money to build all these homes if you aren’t public? (44:04) - How do you think about the year following a sale with home builders having to eat a lot of costs after the fact with different warranties or finishes that arise? (47:27) - How are you thinking about the high cost of lumber? Are you hedging your bet on that? (49:50) - What are the biggest challenges that you think about on a day-to-day basis? (51:53) - Is the USA under-built or over-built? (53:01) - Is there any technology on the horizon that will have a dramatic impact on the speed of building or cost of homes? (55:01) - Is there any silver bullet to combat the increased difficulty of working with cities? (57:23) - Do you have a childhood experience that has changed the direction of your life? Boy Scouts Outward Bound Amigos De Las Americas (58:57) - What’s the best advice you’ve ever received? (1:00:16) - Are there any books that have had an impact on you? Clive Cussler - The Dirk Pitt Adventures Grit - Angela Duckworth Shoe Dog - Phil Knight Adam Grant books The Dichotomy of Leadership - Jocko Willink (1:01:37) - Chris’ Book Club w/ His Management Team The FORT with Chris Powers is produced by Straight Up Podcasts

Chris talks with Natalie and Caleb Ebel, Co-founders of BackDrop, a paint company looking to change the way we paint our homes, backdrops and offices. They chat about the struggles of launching a company, working with your spouse, raising capital and how their previous employment prepared them for starting a company. You can visit their website at https://www.backdrophome.com Connect with The FORT by emailing us at thefortpodcast@gmail.com  For more information on Chris Powers and Fort Capital, visit www.fortcapitallp.com Follow Chris on twitter! @fortworthchris 1:57 - How did you decide to start BackDrop? 6:30 - How did your previous jobs prepare you for starting BackDrop? 8:35 - Not needing a huge budget to build an amazing brand 9:31 What is different about BackDrop and how are they changing the industry? 17;38 - WHat are some o the biggest things you’ve learned sinced launching BackDrop? 20:51 - Has your supply chain changed as the business changed? 22;30 - Manufacturing Processes 26:09 - whats it like to work day in and day out with your spouse? (27:34 potential Intro)  30:20- Was there a “we are going to do this” moment for starting a company?  33:17 - What was the process of raising capital like?  37:27 - What was launch day like? 39:40 - what channels are available to you for growth? 41:48 - What does the customer experience look like? 43:50 - How did you determine the process finding best practices? 48:30 - Mentorship 56:00 What are the biggest challenges you face today  58:07 - Framework for setting goals? 1;00;12 - what do you look for in adding people to the company 1;01;50 - How do you learn? 1:05:05 - What's the best advice you have ever received?   "The FORT" is brought to you by Straight Up Podcasts LLC

Kyle started his fixed-income career on a J.P. Morgan trading desk before joining multi-strategy hedge fund Millennium. In 2018, Kyle left Millennium to manage his own capital, emphasizing real estate debt investing. He has experience investing across the real estate capital structure, including first and second-lien mortgages, tax liens, and equity. He holds a Bachelor of Science in mathematics from the University of Maryland. On this episode Chris & Kyle discuss: what he learned from trading at hedge funds on Wall Street and why he eventually decided to start buying crack houses how to find and buy distressed debt different types of high-yield loans and strategies forward thoughts on the 2023 real estate market and more! Learn more about Chris Powers and Fort Capital: www.FortCapitalLP.com Follow Fort Capital on LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/company/fort-capital/ Follow Chris on Twitter: www.Twitter.com/FortWorthChris  Follow Chris on LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/in/chrispowersjr/  Subscribe to The Fort on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCuJ32shRt8Od3MxMY-keTSQ Follow Kyle on Twitter: https://twitter.com/financeguy725 Constitutional Lending: https://constlending.com/invest Topics: (2:05) - How did you get into Wall St. and where did that transform into buying crackhouses? (5:22) - How do you come up with a trade idea? (9:20) - How often do you need to have an idea? (11:08) - How accurate is the show Billions? (13:09) - Why forces people to stay in the Wall St. world? (15:12) - What code do you write? (16:36) - How would you describe what you do today? (19:25) - What are you seeing in lending right now? (24:34) - How would you predict the lending industry’s future in the short to medium term? (27:12) - What’s happening in Office right now? (30:21) - What happens on your end when someone presents a loan for you to buy? (38:31) - What happens when you take control of an asset? (45:03) - Wanting to own a bank  (45:42) - How do you source these non-performing loans? (50:13) - Is your model scalable? (51:40 - What is a Prevent Foreclosure Loan? (54:20 - What’s an Airbnb Loan? (57:02) - Punting assets vs. Running a business (1:00:35) - Do you think sometimes your ability to operate hurts you? (1:03:52) - Will high-yield loans still be 8-12% in ’23? (1:05:06) - What needs to happen for money to start moving again? (1:10:05) - What do you think about in terms of existential risks to your business? (1:12:58) - Ranting about insurance (1:23:07) - Wrapping up

We'd appreciate you filling out our audience survey, so we can continuously work on providing relevant content to our listeners. Responses received by 05/11/23 will be entered in a drawing for $500 cash. http://www.thefortpod.com/survey Charlie started the John W. Rich parody account, which became the springboard for his content agency, Alpha Social. Charlie has helped dozens of clients build up their personal brands with Twitter content, amassing millions of followers for his clients and 190,000+ followers on his John W. Rich account. In June of 2022, Alpha Social was acquired by Workweek. On this episode Chris & Charlie discuss: How starting a parody account on Twitter (John W. Rich) led to launching a ghostwriting agency How to build an online audience The value of twitter for building a business & brand How to use Twitter to launch a business Key Takeaways: (2:02) - Charlie on creating the John W. Rich Twitter account (8:04) - Is there a way to monetize this account to be a full-time business? (10:19) - How’d you select John’s profile photo? (11:22) - How have you leveraged this account into a content agency? (13:10) - What is a client looking for when they come to work with you? (18:02) - What’s the cadence for a client’s content release? (20:09) - Do you encourage your clients to basically “do whatever they want” alongside the content you’re creating for them? (21:57) - What is the value of taking Twitter seriously? (24:07) - How are your clients building up accounts into businesses? (28:15) - How often should you be telling the story that you build your account on? (30:22) - Are there any hacks you’ve learned from Twitter to make it a better experience? (34:53) - Has Twitter gotten worse since Elon took over? (40:21) - Why do you think users enjoy reading threads? (44:59) - Is there any emerging trend you’re seeing that is working for Twitter engagement? (49:38) - Do you think that people can separate the shit post from the shit poster? (55:42) - What was the process of selling your agency to Workweek and what is your role with them now? (57:10) - How will the creator economy evolve over the next 5 years? Additional Resources 👉John W. Rich on Twitter: https://twitter.com/Cokedupoptions 👉Charlie Light on Twitter: https://twitter.com/charliewrich 👉Alpha Social Group: https://alphasocialgroup.com/ 👉Workweek: https://workweek.com/ 👉Brett from Designjoy: https://twitter.com/BrettFromDJ ➡️ Learn more about Relay Human Cloud ➡️ Fort Capital: www.FortCapitalLP.com ➡️ CRE Daily: https://www.credaily.com/ ➡️ Follow Fort Capital on LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/company/fort-capital/ ➡️ Follow Chris on Twitter: www.twitter.com/FortWorthChris ➡️ Follow Chris on LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/in/chrispowersjr/ ➡️ Sign Up for our Newsletter: https://newsletter.thefortpod.com/ ➡️ Subscribe to The FORT on YouTube -- The FORT Podcast with Chris Powers is a place where you can find meaningful conversations about entrepreneurship, real estate, investing, and more. Be sure to follow the podcast, so you never miss an episode! The FORT is produced by Johnny Podcasts

Andy Weiner, President of RockStep Capital, started RockStep Capital Corporation in 1996. Weiner has built or acquired over 9 million square feet of shopping centers throughout the United States. Prior to founding RockStep Capital, Weiner served as Vice President of Operations for Weiner Stores, a chain of 159 family clothing stores with locations in Mississippi, Louisiana, and Texas. We discuss:  Andy’s mall thesis A Deal Breakdown of a mall in Small town America Implementing a successful company culture via the Rocksteps We'd appreciate you filling out our audience survey, so we can continuously work on providing relevant content to our listeners.  https://www.thefortpod.com/survey Links RockStep Capital The 25 RockSteps Topics (00:00:00) - Intro (00:04:58) - Andy’s background (00:09:09) - Retail pricing structures (00:14:06) - Falling in love with small-town America (00:18:52) - Andy’s mall thesis (00:21:59) - What Andy looks for when underwriting a mall (00:30:19) - What are deal killers for you? (00:33:58) - Capitalizing and Closing deals (00:38:50) - Deal breakdown: Manhaatan, KS (00:45:37) - Zombie malls (00:48:53) - Government funding + battling Amazon (00:52:07) - Alternative ways to monetize mall assets (00:54:27) - The Rockstep way Support our Sponsors Bullpen: https://www.bullpenre.com/ Vesto: https://www.vesto.com/fort Better Pitch: https://bit.ly/42d9L0I Fort: https://bit.ly/FortCompanies Follow Fort on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/fort-companies/ Chris on Social Media: The Fort Podcast on Twitter/X: https://x.com/theFORTpodcast Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/thefortpodcast LinkedIn: https://bit.ly/45gIkFd   Watch The Fort on YouTube: https://bit.ly/3oynxNX Visit our website: https://bit.ly/43SOvys Leave a review on Apple: https://bit.ly/45crFD0 Leave a review on Spotify: https://bit.ly/3Krl9jO  The FORT is produced by Johnny Podcasts